By Mr Mcewen (Rowing Coach)

On Sunday 23rd February the boat club attended Hammersmith Head in London, a time trial race over 4000m between Chiswick and Hammersmith bridges on the river Thames. This race acts as another opportunity to gain valuable experience on the tideway for our crews before the Women's Eights and the Schools Head of the River Races later in this term.

A change in river conditions with the recent rain and the tide made the stream too fast for less experienced rowers. This meant that our J15 crew, along with all other J15 crews, were unfortunately not allowed to race at the very last minute. However, even with the fast stream and gusty wind forecast we still had two senior squad eights racing in a field with many of the top junior crews in the country.

Both crews marshalled well in the difficult conditions, the one positive from having a reduced number of crews racing was that they didn’t have to spend as long as usual dealing with them. These conditions, while tricky to deal with, led to some very fast racing and our boats came away with 8th and 12th place in times of 12:23.9 and 13:51.3. A good result for both but with plenty still to build upon in the coming weeks.