The club had seven crews racing at Barnes and Mortlake Regatta on Saturday and chalked up a win and two runners up. All our crews had wanted to enter masters events but had to be satisfied with races in the open events offered in the regatta programme.
Our two open coxless fours both progressed to the final, where the younger crew of Simon Hunt, Jon Donne, David Allen and Ken Creighton beat Jose Cotera, Tim Must, Andy Reynolds and Adriaan Anderson by two lengths.
In the women’s quad sculls Jane Nicholls, Benedicte Weir, Inkeri Abbotts and Polly Atkinson made it to the final but were beaten there by Fulham Reach.
The full results from the regatta may be found at https://easyregatta.co.uk/er_resultslive.php?rID=2130.
Event: 4-, Masters E (racing in Open category)
When we lined up against Oxford Amateurs in the semi-final, it was only our 4th time together as a crew and for some of us it was our first regatta. But we had been improving visibly over the previous 3 training sessions, so didn’t feel too intimidated. Unfortunately we (Jose (bow steers), Tim, Andy and Adriaan) didn’t have the relaxed start we’d achieved in training and Oxford gained a length on us from the startline. But then we found our rhythm, settled and gradually eat away at their lead, passed them and went on to win by 0.75 lengths!
In the final we faced the other Quintin boat (Masters D). We didn’t start too bad (and were even ahead a bit), but then experience, stamina and age started making the difference. In the end we lost by 2 lengths, but felt we could be proud of ourselves with lots of scope for improvement!
Words by Adriaan Andersen
Event: 4-, Masters D (racing in Open category) & 4x, Masters D (Open category)
Having adopted a “less-is-more” approach to their race preparation, the Quintin MM’s 4- D-boat (Simon at bow, Jon, Dave & Ken) took on the UCL students with a degree of unwarranted confidence in their first race of the day. And indeed, a poorer race they would struggle to imagine as balance and timing were swiftly jettisoned within the first 10 strokes. But from the depths of adversity (including a brief tussle with the Barker’s Rails Buoy) the crew clawed its way to a half-length lead they were not to surrender.
In the Final we faced Jose, Tim, Andy and Adriaan for a terrific race which illustrates the growing competitiveness of the MM’s squad. Adriaan’s description is accurate in every respect.. other than his statement that they were ahead at one point…
With only the briefest break to attend to mandatory media commitments, the crew switched to our 4x competition. Again, we faced a student crew in our first race.. this time from Imperial. Showing absolutely no respect for their (significant) elders the Imperial crew pulled away to a dominant lead early in the race. Unshackled from the expectations of success, with Ken setting a terrific rate and benefitting from Simon’s expert steersmanship, we enjoyed our best row of the day albeit a losing one.
Words by Jon Donne
Race 72 – A Story of Surprise, Speed… and Slight Shock
As one of the last boats to race in the afternoon, we lined up for Race 72 having only trained together as a full crew a couple of times. Still, we felt reasonably ready until we saw our opposition: St Paul’s Girls (average age: 18) and a crew from Furnivall who looked like they’d just stepped out of a rowing-themed Marvel movie. While it’s fair to say we’re a mix of age, experience and height, it was hard not to feel a flicker of trepidation as the umpire called ‘Attention’
To everyone’s amazement, including our own, we flew off the start line, shot past the schoolgirls and left the Furnivall crew behind with enough of a lead to glance back and shout an encouraging bravo as they crossed the finish line.
Having not actually expected to reach the final, we couldn’t replicate our Herculean effort and didn’t win the final but were super proud of our achievement and looking forward to racing together again soon.
Words by Inkeri Abbots
