5 June 2017
100 boys from the Boat Club raced at the three-day National Schools Regatta from 26-28 May. The regatta brings together the quickest junior and school crews in the country.
The J14s opened the racing on Friday with some fine performances. A-D crews were sent to test themselves against the top competition in the country. The Ds and Cs raced superbly in the B event finishing 13th and 23rd. The B crew made excellent progress through the semi finals and just missed out on a medal in the final finishing 4th. The A crew similarly raced well through the semis to make the final and in a competitive final race finished an excellent 6th.
The J15s B and C Crews were 15th and 19th. The J15 As performed well in the time trial finishing 9th to qualify for the A/B semi finals but were outpaced in their semi final. The crew did produce their best racing and in a tight field were the closest to the top few crews that they have been this year.
The J16 B four did well to qualify through to the semi finals against many other schools’ top boat and finished 14th. The J16 A VIII raced well in the time trial and semi final. They finished 9th in the time trial, before narrowly missing out on qualification for the final in a fast semi. Their time would have seen them progress to the final in the other semi final.
The J16s had an excellent Sunday. Breaking down into Fours they finished 3rd and 9th in their time trials. The four of Matthew Wiblin, Daniel Wilmot, Robert Smith and Connor Brown, then narrowly missed qualification through the semi final again in the faster of the two semi finals. The four of Gabriel Dobson, James Stammers, Henry Muller and Charles Hall raced through to the final and produced an excellent effort in the final to win the Silver Medal.
The Seniors showed some improvements in speed with the 2nd VIII progressing to the A final before finishing 8th. The 3rd IV finished 16th. The 1st VIII showed some good speed and in a tight field was just squeezed out in the semi final by 0.99 second, but have shown they can now compete with most of the crews in the A final. On the Sunday IVs racing the Coxless Four raced very well to progress to the A final and achieve a final ranking of 6th.
The J14-J16s will now race at Bedford Star and Reading Town Regattas. The 1st and 2nd VIII will come out again at Henley qualifiers and Henley Royal Regatta.
