It’s been a busy two weeks for our racing crews, with Henley Royal Regatta (30th June-5th July) followed by Henley Masters (10th-12th July) and Kingston (11th July).
Taking things more or less chronologically, our competition kicked off At Henley Royal with the Wyfold Four beating Upper Thames RC on the first day and then losing by just ¼ length to Mercantile RC of Melbourne, Australia in a very spirited row the following day. Well done to Oliver Bird, Joe Wolfin, Elliott Kemp and Balthasar Issa on proudly flying the Quintin flag. The full results of their races may be found on our archive website at https://quintinboatclub.org/henley/entry.php?ref=2026W where there are also links to videos of the two races.
Henley Masters Regatta started on Friday, 10th July, with racing continuing to Sunday for the first time in the event’s history. Our first race was at 9:37 when our Open Masters D coxed four had a tough battle with Cantabrigian, losing out by ⅓ length. At 10:22 the first of our two Women’s Masters D quads, stroked by Roberta Gargiuolo, took on Marlow RC, winning by a length and progressing to the quarter-final. Then at 11:06 Devlin Lindeque and Tim Must raced Weybridge RC in Open Masters E double sculls, but were well beaten. In the afternoon our two Women’s Masters D quad sculls raced in separate quarter-finals, one after the other at 14:08 and 14:12. The Gargiuolo quad were first, trying to emulate their success in the earlier heat, but went down to Bewl Brdige by 3 lengths. A similar fate befell Polly Atkinson’s crew, losing by 3½ lengths to Walton RC.
(photo courtesy of Ben Rodford Photography)
Saturday saw the turn of our Open Masters H squad, competing in an eight and a coxed four, with Ken Creighton also competing in Open Masters E coxless pairs with his Olden Bears compatriot Bill Jackman. The eight raced first, at 10:36, taking on and beating Tideway Scullers School by three lengths. In the afternoon four of the crew plus Hilary Cook at cox lost by 1¼ lengths to the Detroit Boat Club Masters H crew, who went on to win the final against Tideway Scullers by three lengths. In the three o’clock heat of Open Masters coxless pairs Ken and Bill had a tough battle with the UTRC pair, with UTRC just a length ahead at the finish. Lastly on Saturday, Tom Bishop raced in a composite Open Masters H quad scull with Dave Hope and Rod Stewart of Upper Thames and Bob Milligan of Poplar, Blackwall and District. They were facing Maidstone Invicta and, as Tom reports, “The race lasted the full length of the course and we beat them by a length. We didn’t row well and scratched at it at too high a rate. In the post race discussion we make a pact that we would do the final at rate 31 instead of 36-38!”
This left us with just the Open H eights final on Sunday morning and Tom Bishop in the composite Open Masters H quad scull in the afternoon. The eights race was against our nemesis, the Bedford / Star combination, having lost to them in the G category at Henley Masters in 2019, 2023 and 2024. Sadly, this year was to be no different and the verdict was one length to the Bedford clubs just as in 2024. The closest we have come to them was in 2019 when the verdict was one foot.
Here is a video of the eights final:
Tom fared better in the quad event, with a close victory over Detroit Boat Club . Tom reports: “… Detroit .. came with a known reputation as being quick. Their other crews at HMR had a hat full of wins. In the race we set off as usual at 40+ and after 20 strokes dropped the rate to 31. Detroit started to go away from us at a higher rate. At about 1 minute they were ¾ of a length ahead but we had stopped them taking any more distance. I felt them slow as they started to pay for the early effort. Gradually we dragged them back and I felt, OK this is going to be easy, but by half way we were only level; we had stopped walking past them. At about ⅔ distance we were still at 31 and I was sitting exactly opposite my guy in their bow – we were still level. However they were overrating us by quite a bit. With perhaps 20 strokes to go we put the hammer down, as we had agreed we would, and raised the rate to 37 flying by them to win – by not very much. I think the ½ length in the results is little pessimistic, but it was a good race and a good win.”
The full results from the regatta may be found at https://www.henleymastersregatta.org.uk/results/.
Back to Saturday and Kingston Regatta where we had three entries. Our Open Masters E coxless four of James Weir, Andy Reynolds, Adriaan Andersen and Ken Fowlie raced a Masters D four from Curlew, but in spite of their handicap advantage they lost by 2½ lengths. Our Women’s Masters D quad scull were similarly unsuccessful, finished third in a three-boat race two lengths behind Walbrook and a length behind Kingston. The Mixed Masters Novice coxed quad we entered had to scratch. Full results from Kingston may be found at https://rowstats.com/regatta.php?id=26008&f=1&day=1.
Masters H VIII left to right: Graham Bagnall, Tom Bishop, Simon Hunt, Andy Tompkins, Ken Creighton, Dave Jillings, Geoff Peel, Ian Hyslop, Hillary Cook.
