Over a sweltering weekend the supervets competed in three events at HMR 2025. The heat wave brought out pleasure boats in their droves, which made for, at times, a very bumpy course that belied its tranquil appearance from the bank.
In MasI 4x, a composite Upper Thames/Quintin crew comprising Rod Stewart (UTRC), Lee Brown (UTRC), Tom Bishop (QBC) and Geoff Peel (QBC) had a straight final against Guildford RC. UTRC/QBC had a solid row to claim victory over Guildford with a comfortable margin.
Our MasH 8+ crew also had a bye to the final, this time against a crew drawn from the Bedford/Star composite squad that has been providing stiff opposition in Mas F/G/H categories for the last couple of years. Despite a powerful start, the QBC crew (Dave Jillings, Geoff Peel, Richard Lonergan, Rod Stewart (UTRC), Andy Tompkins, Huw Jones, Tom Bishop, Graham Bagnall and cox Birgith Sims) could not contain Bedford/Star, who moved out to perhaps a 0.75 length lead just after halfway. At this point, Birgith’s experience and tactical awareness came to the fore. Responding to her exhortations, QBC dug deep, raising the rate to 37 in the sprint to the finish, but despite throwing the kitchen sink in could not quite close the deficit and finished a canvas down on the line.
In MasH 4+, Huw Jones and Graham Bagnall had been asked at the last minute to make up a crew with two oarsmen from Reading RC and their first outing together was the semi final against Bradford on Avon. Between the launch pontoon and the stake boat the crew managed to reconcile stylistic differences to the extent that they were able to claim a 2.5 length victory at a comfortable 28 spm in a time of 4:27. The final, however, came soon after the lung-busting H8+ final, and despite our boys’ best efforts Bedford/Star went on to win in a time of 4:10.
