On Saturday 4 February, the Boat Club rowers travelled to Wycliffe in order to take part in the Wycliffe Head. As the season marches on towards spring, prestigious rowing events are more and more frequent. Whatever the weather, the rowers are on the river training hard for their upcoming races, and the results of the Wycliffe Head show that the hard work being put in is paying off! Thank you to Director of Rowing Mr David Currie for the following report on a successful race:
‘The Boat Club had the two-hour trip to Gloucestershire early Saturday morning to race at Wycliffe Big Head Crews from Year 10, 11, 12 and 13 all competed. This race was run on a canal over 4.5km as a time trial, with schools such as Royal Shrewsbury and Abingdon School competing. The conditions were perfect for racing with not much more than a light tail wind helping crews down the course. It was great for all of our rowers to be back in action after the long break in racing over Christmas. Most rowers maximised their time at Wycliffe by racing twice in the day, which accumulated to 25km of rowing with 9km of racing. Needless to say there were some tired legs at the end of the day!
The Shiplake College Boat Club won four events, came 2nd in four events and 3rd in one event. In Division 1, the Open 4+ crew of Austin Burnand, Will Dolin, Ollie Newton, Henry Blois-Brooke and Jamie Pond came 1st, as did the J16 4+ crew of Zack Green, Leonard Jung, Dom Brown, Caldeira and Joseph Rayner. In Division 2, the J16 8+ crew of Ethan Caldeira, Morgan Taylor, Leonard Jung, Richard Adams, Josh O’Hare, Dom Brown, Marcus Brown, Zack Green and Luke Tremayne came 1st, as did the J18 4+ crew of Henry Birdsey, Austin Burnand, Will Dolin, Henry Blois-Brooke and Jamie Pond.
For more information on the results please click here.
The results reflected a good winters training and now it is time to start to selecting boats for the Schools Head of the River at the end of March. This is the part of the season the rowers enjoy when they get selected for their boats and can really work on improving their selected combination. Our next full club race will be Reading University Head on the 4 March.'