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Saturday 1 June — The Metropolitan Regatta (Dorney)

Advance notice of our entries for the Metropolitan Regatta this year: we have an Elite coxless four, an IM1 coxless four and an IM1 coxed four, and Matt Denley has entered IM3 single sculls. Timetable and draw should be available at http://www.metregatta.org/ when published.

Saturday 25 May — Twickenham Regatta

The club has a number of entries at Twickenham Regatta this weekend: James Wragg-Smith has entered both IM3 and Novice single sculls, Anne Wilkinson has entered women's IM3 single sculls and Elli Kirk has entered women's Novice single sculls. The full draw and timetable may be found at http://www.twickenhamrc.co.uk/p/regatta.html.

Sunday 19 May — British Rowing Masters Championships, Holme Pierrepont

Four Golds and Two Silvers

Last year's performance of seven golds, two silvers and the victor ludorum trophy was always going to be a hard act to follow, especially as the majority of our women's entries were rejected due to over-subscription to the regatta as a whole, but nevertheless the club gave it its best shot and a team of fifteen athletes plus coxswain made the long trek up to Nottingham. What a pleasant surprise! Sunshine, a gentle, mostly following breeze and ideal racing condtions! We were not sure if we were at the right place.

Receipt of the draw had severely altered our race plans: no women's doubles or quad, and Nanyamka didn't feel she was ready to scull in the open Championship 'A' sculls rather than the IM3 she had entered for. Tom and Steve also withdrew from 'E' double sculls, with potentially too many races particularly on Tom's hands. So first to race was our 'C' double of Richard Ratcliffe and Frank Raschke in a heat where the fastest three progressed to the final. After a good start our double were in third place at the 500m mark, but then faded to fifth at the finish.

Posn.	Lane	Crew	500m	Finish
1	4	Poplar B&D/MedwayTowns	1:41.5	3:29.18
2	3	Warwick BC	1:43.0	3:29.76
3	1	Wallingford RC	1:44.0	3:30.67
4	6	Bewl Bridge RC	1:45.0	3:31.01
5	2	Quintin BC	1:43.7	3:34.03
6	5	Ardingly RC	1:51.0	3:50.52

Next on for Quintin was Elli Kirk in Women's Masters 'A' Novice sculls. This was Elli's first "big time" race and she was thoroughly pleased with her third place in the final.

Posn.	Lane	Crew	500m	Finish
1	5	Reading RC (McSweeney)	2:03.2	4:10.23
2	1	Belfast BC (Cameron)	2:02.7	4:16.05
3	2	Quintin BC (Kirk)	2:06.7	4:23.39
4	3	Coalporters (Delvalle)	2:13.1	4:32.55
5	4	Twickenham RC(Rudenko)	2:15.0	4:38.11

Twenty four minutes later Tom Bishop comfortably won his heat in Masters 'G' singles (first five to final), leading the field by a good ten seconds.

Posn.	Lane	Crew	500m	Finish
1	2	Quintin BC (Bishop)	1:56.9	4:08.97
2	4	Dart Totnes (Harris) A	2:06.2	4:19.52
3	6	Clydesdale (Johnston)	2:04.4	4:21.93
4	5	St Neots RC (Knights)	2:06.7	4:28.38
5	3	Carlow RC (Dooley)	2:08.5	4:31.12
6	1	Nottingham RC (Lorrimer)	2:10.5	4:38.99

Our next heat was 'D' eights (first three to qualify for the final) where our crew did just enough to win, beating a Reading / Bradford-on_Avon composite by just over a second.

Posn.	Lane	Crew	500m	Finish
1	4	Quintin BC	1:33.5	3:15.62
2	5	Reading/BradfordonAvon	1:34.9	3:16.88
3	1	Runcorn RC	1:37.0	3:19.95
4	2	Stourport BC	1:40.8	3:24.74
5	6	Tyne RC	1:39.9	3:26.69
6	3	Oundle Town RC	1:42.0	3:31.96

Just under two hours later, it was time for the 'E' eights final, reduced to a three-boat race by a scratching after the draw had taken place. Quintin always dominated this rrace, taking an early lead and turning on the power to win by clear water. The official times for this race are a little suspect, as they show Maidstone Invicta in the lead at the halfway mark, which was not the case.

Posn.	Lane	Crew	500m	Finish
1	5	Quintin BC	1:40.7	3:19.51
2	2	Maidstone Invicta RC	1:37.5	3:23.38
3	3	Broxbourne RC	1:41.0	3:28.75

Next combination - our 'F' eight. This was an F/G handicap race (three 'F' and three 'G' crews), where the 'F' crews would start eight seconds behind the older men: a tough challenge, but our crew determinedly went over the course at 38 strokes per minute, finishing at 39 just 1.73 seconds ahead of second-placed Reading and seven seconds ahead of the next fastest 'F' crew. Incidentally, ex-Quintin member Mike Dudley was sitting at 4 in the Reading crew.

Posn.	Lane	Crew	500m	Finish
1	5	Quintin BC (Mas F)	1:47.2	3:26.51
2	6	Reading RC (Mas G)	1:43.0	3:28.24
3	2	Wallingford RC (Mas G)	1:45.0	3:33.29
4	1	Durham ARC (Mas F)	1:49.7	3:33.47
5	4	X-Press BC (Mas F)	1:52.4	3:40.13
6	3	Monmouth RC (Mas G)	1:51.8	3:48.81

Deduct eight seconds from the times of the 'F' crews to get their true times. If you do this you will see that the Quintin crew's 500m splits were almost identical - all that winter training paying off!

Next - our race of the day - a majestic win by the 'E' coxless four, establishing a four seconds lead over Jock Wishart's composite by the 500m mark, with Walton a further six seconds behind. The lead was sufficient for stroke man Richard Lonergan to take his foot off the gas in the middle of the race. Walton finished strongly, rowing through the Wishart composite, but Quintin took it home and took nearly a length off Walton in the last twenty strokes to chalk up a convincing victory.

Posn.	Lane	Crew	500m	Finish
1	2	Quintin BC	1:39.5	3:27.15
2	3	Walton RC	1:49.9	3:31.53
3	4	Kingston Composite	1:45.2	3:35.09
4	5	Exeter RC	NTT	3:50.54

With a quick turnaround of the shared boat, our 'F' coxless four then took to the water, but came up against a quality Ardingly four containing some of Geoff Peel's buddies ex-Thames Tradesmen and former World Lightwieght coxless fours champion Colin Barratt. Our crew was always behind and had to be satisfied with the silver medals, four and a half seconds behind the winners, with Avon County a further four seconds behind.

Posn.	Lane	Crew	500m	Finish
1	2	Ardingly RC	1:41.0	3:30.07
2	4	Quintin BC	1:43.7	3:34.62
3	5	Avon County RC	1:46.0	3:38.71
4	3	Stourport BC	1:53.8	3:56.44

By now it was late afternoon, but Quintin still had three events to complete - first off the mark, Tom Bishop in the 'G' singles final. Tom won with ease, his closest rival, Tubbs of Dart Totnes, being over ten seconds behind.

Posn.	Lane	Crew	500m	Finish
1	3	Quintin BC (Bishop)	1:56.9	4:08.97
2	6	Dart Totnes ARC (Tubbs) B	2:06.2	4:19.52
3	4	Dart Totnes ARC (Harris) A	2:04.4	4:21.93
4	5	Clydesdale (Johnston)	2:06.7	4:28.38
5	1	Carlow RC (Dooley)	2:08.5	4:31.12
6	2	St Neots RC (Knights)	2:10.5	4:38.99

Next was the F/G coxless pairs with Andrew and Paul (Masters 'F') taking on a pair from the winning Ardingly coxless four they had raced earlier. All 'F' crews had pretty much reversed the nine second handicap of the 'G' crew by the 500m. mark, but Andrew and Paul could not match the pace of the leaders and finished seven seconds down on the winners in third place.

Posn.	Lane	Crew	500m	Finish
1	5	Ardingly RC (Mas F)	2:04.2	4:03.19
2	1	Durham ARC (Mas F)	2:05.2	4:05.33
3	2	Quintin BC (Mas F)	2:08.5	4:10.74
4	4	Stourport BC (Mas G)	2:14.1	4:35.00

Finally, the 'D' eights final. This was another exciting race, with Quintin slow out of the blocks compared with the other crews and trailing the leaders, Marlow, by about a length in fourth place at the 500m mark. Over the second half Marlow gradually faded, leaving Upper Thames to pull away, taking Quintin with them, who got their bows in front of Marlow just before the line to take the silver medals.

Posn.	Lane	Crew	500m	Finish
1	2	Upper Thames RC	1:31.7	3:05.78
2	3	Quintin BC	1:34.0	3:08.30
3	4	Marlow RC	1:31.4	3:09.03
4	6	Abingdon RC	1:33.2	3:11.29
5	5	Reading/BradfordonAvon	1:34.3	3:12.47
6	1	Runcorn RC	1:35.5	3:15.23

And so our overall tally was four golds and two silvers from the nine events we competed in. The medal winners were:

• Masters 'E' eights (GOLD): Huw Jones, Steve Aquilina, Charles Harrison, Jonathan Ferris, Geoff Peel, Richard Lonergan, Fred Jefferies, Pete Meaney, Debbie Bregenzer (cox)
• Masters 'E' coxless fours (GOLD): Huw Jones, Jonathan Ferris, Fred Jefferies, Richard Lonergan
• Masters 'F' eights (GOLD): Andrew Bramah, Tom Bishop, Charles Harrison, Roger Hine, Jonathan Ferris, Paul Taylor, Geoff Peel, Pete Meaney, Debbie Bregenzer (cox)
• Masters 'G' single sculls (GOLD): Tom Bishop
• Masters 'D' eights (SILVER): Huw Jones, Steve Aquilina, Charles Harrison, Richard Ratcliffe, Frank Raschke, Richard Lonergan, Fred Jefferies, Pete Meaney, Debbie Bregenzer (cox)
• Masters 'F' coxless fours (SILVER): Andrew Bramah, Roger Hine, Geoff Peel, Paul Taylor

We didn't win the victor ludorum trophy this year, but we finished a creditable fourth with 194 points, 23 points behind the winners, Lea RC on 217. Our own "man-of-the-match" was Jonathan Ferris, with three gold medals to his credit.

Photographs from the regatta may be found at http://quintinboatclub.org/gallery/image.php?ref=1566.

If you want more results the full details may be found at http://www.masterschamps.org/files/MastersChamps-2013-Raw-Results-V1.pdf.

Saturday 18 May — Nottingham City Regatta

The club had three entries at Nottingham City Regatta on Saturday - an IM1 coxed four, an IM1 coxless four, and an IM1 eight. In a five-boat final over the 2000m. Holme Pierrepont course, the eight finished third, behind a very fast St. Edward's School and King's School, Chester.

Posn.	Lane	Crew	500m	1000m	1500m	Finish
1	2	St Edwards Sch	01:31.0	03:08.0	04:48.3	06:28.2
2	3	Kings Sch Chester	01:34.4	03:15.3	04:59.3	06:43.0
3	5	Quintin BC	01:38.7	03:21.5	05:04.6	06:48.7
4	4	York Univ	01:38.0	03:21.1	05:05.3	06:50.3
5	1	Cambridge City RC	01:39.9	03:25.5	05:13.8	07:03.4

The coxed four also lost out to a fast St. Edward's School crew, finishing fourth.

Posn.	Lane	Crew	500m	1000m	1500m	Finish
1	2	St Edwards Sch	01:41.0	03:29.1	05:21.0	07:11.7
2	6	City of Bristol RC	01:48.7	03:37.8	05:31.5	07:22.0
3	5	Curlew	01:46.0	03:37.3	05:31.6	07:23.3
4	4	Quintin BC	01:52.2	03:44.9	05:43.1	07:39.7
5	3	York City	01:51.3	03:43.9	05:43.6	07:41.5
6	1	Nott m & Union	02:04.4	03:49.6	05:49.1	07:46.1

The coxless four also finished fourth in a close race with just six seconds covering the first four crews at the finish, all of whom were faster than the winners of Elite coxless fours.

Posn.	Lane	Crew	500m	1000m	1500m	Finish
1	2	Lea RC	01:39.9	03:27.5	05:13.8	07:01.5
2	4	Newark RC	01:38.3	03:27.3	05:15.3	07:04.1
3	5	York City	01:39.0	03:25.0	05:17.3	07:04.7
4	6	Quintin BC	01:41.0	03:29.5	05:19.1	07:07.1
5	1	Leeds RC	01:42.4	03:31.5	05:23.0	07:15.1
6	3	Chester le Street ARC	01:44.0	03:38.8	05:36.6	07:33.3

Full results of the regatta may be found at https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxub3R0aW5naGFtY2l0eXJlZ2F0dGF8Z3g6NTYwNGE4OTJlYz
k5ZjczZg.

Saturday 18 May — Putney Town Regatta

The club had three scullers competing at Putney Town Regatta and they all came home with silverware. Matt Denley won men's novice sculls with a prize of a quart tankard, Luke Moneley rowed over to take IM3 single sculls after his only opponent scratched and Tamsyn Wedlake-James won women's IM3 single sculls. We hope to provide a few more details shortly.

The full regatta programme may be found at http://www.putneytownregatta.org.uk/sites/default/files/PTR%202013%20Race%20Timetable%20v1-0.pdf.

Saturday 11 and Sunday 12 May — Ghent International May Regatta

Our senior squad travelled to Ghent this weekend to compete in the two-day international regatta. On Saturday we had two pairs in the open coxless pairs event: Will Bryant with Mike Ewing, and Alex Miller with John Forde, but both pairs found themselves off the pace and failed to progress from the heats. Our pairs then combined to compete in open coxless fours, but again did not progress from the heats.

On Sunday a number of scratchings resulted in the Senior A coxless pairs event being a straight final. Mike Ewing and Alex Miller finished third out of five, losing out to two Leander pairs. The Senior A four of Will Bryant, John Forde, Mike Ewing and Alex Miller qualified in their heat for the final, where they finished fourth out of five, behind Molesey, Leander and Thames.

Full results may be found at http://www.krsg.be.res7.mijnpreview.com/nl-NL/organisaties/international-may-regatta/engels/home-en.html.

Photographs from the regatta may be found at http://quintinboatclub.org/gallery/image.php?ref=1557.

Saturday 11 May —Borne @ Chiswick Bridge Regatta

We had three scullers competing at Borne Regatta on Saturday: Anne Wilkinson and Tamsyn Wedlake-James in women's IM3 single sculls, and Luke Moneley in men's novice sculls. Anne met Zoe Gullen of Tideway Scullers in the first heat and lost by 4 lengths. Tamsyn beat Lazarevic of Sons of the Thames by two lengths in her first heat but lost to Gullen by 3½ lengths in the final. In the men's novice event, Luke won both his heat and the final easily against Blackford of Tideway Scullers and Wachholz of Vesta respectively. Well done, Luke! You're in the Potwinners' Chart.

Sunday 5 May — Wallingford Regatta (Dorney)

Luke Moneley tried to improve on his Chiswick performance the next day over the 2000m distance of Dorney Lake, but found the opposition in IM3 sculls a little more challenging. He finished ffith in his heat in a time of 8 min. 15.64 sec.

Full results may be found at http://www.wallingford.regatta.org.uk/regatta-results/results2013/results2013.html.

Saturday 4 May — Chiswick Amateur Regatta

The weather on Friday promised a pleasant Chiswick Regatta Saturday for 2013, but when the day arrived there were strong winds, accompanied by squally showers throughout the morning - the first time the regatta had seen rain in about twenty years. However, the weather brightened up in the afternoon, and in any case our competitors were not to be deterred by a few drops of rain. In novice sculls, Luke Moneley got us off to a good start, winning his first heat easily, and Matt Denley followed in his path with a four length advantage in his first race. In the next round Matt met Moss of Westminster School and lost by 1½ lengths, but Luke won his semi-final by 2½ lengths to meet Moss in the final. After a very close race, Luke crossed the line second, just ¾ length down on the Westminster schoolboy. Well done to both our scullers.

Our Masters F coxed four had a long wait for their straight final against Tideway Scullers, but when the appointed hour arrived they insisted on giving themselves a hard time. First of all the two crews managed to interlock blades about half a minute into the race with Quintin a canvas in the lead, and then on the restart our crew contrived to start a canvas down. With two thirds of the race gone they were still ¾ length down, but, to the entertainment of the crowds watching from the boathouses, they then raised the rating three pips and came home a canvas up, thus opening the account for regatta wins in 2013.

The winning crew: Andrew Bramah (bow), Roger Hine, Paul Taylor, Jonathan Ferris (bowside stroke), Jane Adams (cox).

A photograph of the crew may be found at http://quintinboatclub.org/gallery/image.php?ref=1555.

Full results of the regatta may be found at ../chiswick/2013.results.html.

Once again the regatta was over-subscribed, which unfortunately meant there were no events for our three women scullers who had sent in their entries.

Saturday 13 - Saturday 20 April — Training Camp, Aiguebelette, France

Anne Wilkinson reports on her return from Aiguebelette, sporting an enviable suntan:

Leaving the dreary UK weather behind us, twenty Quintin members and seven Putney Town RC members took themselves off to the sunnier climes of Lac d’Aiguebelette for a week. After checking in to the hotel, we couldn’t get to the lake quickly enough to unload and rig all the boats. On arrival lakeside at Aiguebelette, we had to share our area with the University of Bristol Boat Club who were packing up in bright sunshine. Apparently this was the best day they had had and we couldn’t help but be a little smug when checking the weather forecast – it was promising to be a scorcher of a week.

The first day of rowing began bright and early on Sunday morning and despite the excitement of being on holiday we were perfectly happy to be woken up at 7am for a quick breakfast with the sun just rising above the mountains and warming up the lake perfectly. The water was beautiful and as flat and clear as glass. We took the first outing with apprehension as there was just so much water. Without the fear of crashing in to anything (apart from the big tin cans) it was almost disconcerting but wonderful that we didn’t need to look around to steer……much…..

After the standard three course lunch back at Les Lodges du Lac, and with us all feeling a little soporific, it was time to get some well-earned rest (or in the girls' case, time to sunbathe and minimise the already protruding tan lines). Back at the Lake for the afternoon session it was glorious with the warmth meaning that nearly all of us were tempted to a swim. None was quite brave enough at this point in the week I might just add.

In the evening, as what followed suit most of the week, we met at the hotel bar for a pre-dinner drink followed by another three course meal after which the “swamp dwellers” would trundle back for a game of cards or a film or just a gossip whilst the “grown-ups” would sit around the dinner table talking intellectually about ….well……stuff I guess.

During the trip we celebrated a birthday (Anne’s) for which Tom Bishop very kindly threw her into the lake as a treat; we had the afternoon off on Wednesday where most of Putney decided they would go for a swim in a different lake but we think they really spend most of their time topping up their tans; Quintin mooched around the lovely little village of Novalaise where they chanced upon a lovely bar where the beer flowed freely so all in all had a jolly jolly good time as I am sure you can all imagine!

Wednesday evening also meant the arrival of four of the barflies who were looking especially pale in comparison to the singed skin of the rest of the group and had a lot of catching up to do on all fronts. By the time we reached Friday, our luck with the weather had finally run out and down came the rain in droves which was pretty relentless all day. This did not deter us from Duncan’s idea of a mini regatta and off we went soaked to the skin before we had even left the pontoon. What we all did have though was flat water making it perfect to race in and seeing as we had been practising rowing in a straight line all week, we didn’t even need to be able to see where we were going. The results of the regatta saw Geoff Potts' and Tom Bishop’s double the top of everything racing the 1000m in 3:42. The top sculler was Rob Williams in a time of 3:54 and the top women’s sculler was Tamsyn Wedlake James in a time of 4:27.

Note: Rob, Luke and Alex’s race was, in fact, over the 1500m course as Duncan decided that they needed to work harder for their glory.

So along with these awards given out in the evening, the coaches decided they would give a few more for the week. See below for the results:

• Top Sculler - Rob Williams/Tamsyn Wedlake James
• Top Beginner – Jakub Chalupczak (PTRC)
• Most Improved – Basil Amin (PTRC)
• Most “Cunning” & Fastest Crew - (Tom Bishop/Geoff Potts)
• Most Creative Rowing Style – Jim Winters (PTRC)

Other Awards

• Least Successful Diet – Alex Page
• Best Excuse – Luke Moneley *aka Samson*
• Fasted person to do Willie's 5 min test in 4 mins – Hayley Short

The remainder of the evening went rapidly downhill where everyone got to admire all the prizes given out but none was as interesting as Luke’s wax strips to which Hayley and Anne decided to give him (and the rest of the group) a lesson on waxing. Let’s just say that there are at least half a dozen people from that trip who are leaving with some very smooth skin……….

And finally... a big thank you to all the coaches both official and unofficial who dedicated the week to us. We hope to make you proud this year. Thank you to Rob Williams for organising the trip and of course an extra special thank you to Graham Lloyd for delivering and fetching our boats with seamless skill and efficiency as usual.

Roll on the regatta season and next year – we can’t wait!

[Editor's note: we hope to have some photographic evidence shortly]

Sunday 24 March — QBC Captain's International Mini-Head

In view of the cancellation of the two big races at the weekend it fell upon individual captains, coaches and crews to organise their own competition. On Saturday our first VIII took on and beat Kingston RC and on Sunday there was a mini-extravaganza for the more elderly competitors with an internationally flavoured mini-head organised by our captain, Dave King. Some of our senior (i.e. young) squad also took part in small boats. The international flavour was provided by two Danish/QBC men's composite crews (by arrangement with club member Leif Jacobsen), a men's crew from Eschweger RC, Germany and a composite Quintin / Occoquan International / MAA mixed crew.

The course decided on was on the flood tide from about 300m. below Hammersmith Bridge to the Quintin flagpole, starting at 11:00am. The starting order was based on the estimated relative speeds of the boats, with the fastest on paper going off first. The exception to this was the senior small boats, which were set off in front. With a largely following or cross-wind, conditions were relatively rowable, but the water was extremely lumpy along Chiswick Eyot in spite of wind and tide being in the same direction. Timing was provided by Duncan Hughes and Geoff Potts and the results were as follows (all eights unless otherwise stated):

The coxed four, out for the first time, opted for a low-rating paddle and were not timed.

The original intention was to offer the winning crew free beers at the Quintin bar, but under the circumstances this prize was offered to Leif Jacobsen's QBC/Danish composite Eight. This offer, together with a pint pewter tankard rustled up at short notice, was accepted by their stroke man, current Olympic lightweight double sculling champion Rasmus Quist. Everybody enjoyed a pint or two in the warmth of the clubroom after the race. Hot and cold refreshments were provided by Pete Brown of West Four Harriers.

Photographs from this event may be found at http://quintinboatclub.org/gallery/image.php?ref=1540.

Sunday 24 March — Vesta Veterans' Head

Due to the anticipated adverse weather conditions, this year's race has been cancelled.

Saturday 23 March — The Head of the River Race

Due to the anticipated adverse weather conditions, this year's race has been cancelled.

Friday 22 March — David Garrod

We have only just learnt of the death last month of David Garrod, who won the Double Sculls for QBC at Henley Royal Regatta in 1947.

At Cambridge University, where he read medicine, David won a wartime blue in the 1945 Boat Race at Henley, he was in the Trinity Hall crew that bumped to go Head of the River, and he won the University Sculls and University Pairs. After graduating in 1946 he came to London to train as a doctor at Barts. He joined QBC and formed a double sculls partnership with Wally Horwood, who had won at Henley in 1945 and had been the NARA Champion Sculler for most of the 1930s. They won the double sculls at Henley in 1947, beating a Czechoslovak crew in the final. Their aim was then to represent Great Britain in the 1948 Olympics. At HRR in 1948 Garrod & Horwood lost in the final to a Belgian double. The Olympic regatta was due to start less than five weeks later. The GB selectors were undecided about the double scull and arranged a trial two weeks after Henley in which Garrod & Horwood raced Bert Bushnell & Richard Burnell. Burnell & Bushnell won the trial and went on to win the gold medal. The recent TV film 'Bert and Dickie' airbrushed Garrod & Horwood out of the picture, making no mention of the trial race. After 1948 David Garrod's only racing was for Barts in inter-hospital events and he soon gave up rowing completely. For 30 years until his retirement in 1985 he worked as a doctor in Wokingham.

David Garrod's death leaves our president, Dick Hylton-Smith, as the sole survivor of the two QBC crews that won at HRR in 1947.

A photograph of the 1947 Double Sculls final at Henley may be found at http://quintinboatclub.org/gallery/image.php?ref=46.

Sunday 10 March — Hammersmith Head

The Hammersmith Head was rowed this Sunday afternoon in extremely difficult conditions. The race started not long after a full spring high tide, with a bitterly cold wind blowing from the North-east resulting in white capped waves and a couple of sinkings. All crews battled into the head wind from Barnes Bridge through to the finish, and your correspondent is in a position to give a first hand account of the difficulty in maintaining one's control of the blade with hands like blocks of ice. The general impression from returning crews was that it was "a bit like the North Sea".

That said, the Quintin crews all performed really well in the difficult conditions, demonstrating their superior watermanship to some of the lesser-drilled opposition. Our Elite eight, starting at number 3, held on to their position to finish in a time of 11 min. 54.10 sec, just behind the London RC A and B crews and nine seconds ahead of Tideway Scullers.

The second fastest crew with club involvement was the Masters ‘C’ composite with Auriol Kensington, Vesta and Twickenham, stroked by our own Richard Ratcliffe. They finished 18th overall in a time of 12 min. 37.07 sec and were awarded the Masters B/C pennant, beating the Crabtree Masters ‘B’ crew on handicap.

Not to be outdone, Meaney's Marauders (Masters ‘E’ category) came home the third fastest Masters crew at 35th in a time of 13 min. 2.59 sec. to take the Masters E/F handicap pennant. They were closely followed by our second eight, 38th in 13 min. 7.07 sec. Last, but not least, the Captain's "Barflies" crew were 81st of the 98 finishers, in a time of 14 min. 45.35 sec. On the equally challenging paddle back to the club, our pennant-winning Masters were just in time to see the waterlogged Putney Town Novice eight being rescued from the icy waters along Chiswick Eyot.

Full results may be found at http://www.akrowing.com/downloads/HH Results 2013_Provisional.pdf and the pennant-winning crew members are listed on our 2013 Wins page.

Footnote: For a "complete" experience of the race, with coxswain's continuous commentary, why not take a look at crew No. 41, Green Templeton on YouTube? The fun begins at about the eight minute mark. Or, for more fun, with musical accompaniment, there's crew No. 85, Barts & London A. Who says conditions weren't so bad for the higher numbered crews?

Saturday 9 March — The Women's Head of the River Race

An unusual step for Quintin, but one we hope will become the norm - an entry in the Women's Head of the River Race. We have not had an entry in this race since 2007, so it was good to see our women combining with the University of Westminster and having a crack at it. Of the three hundred and six crews that completed the course they were placed 265th in a time of 22 min. 36.50 sec.

Full results may be found at http://www.wehorr.org/results/2013-results-time-PROV2.pdf.

Saturday 9 March — "Hear the Boat Sing" - an interview with Dick Hylton-Smith

Members and non-members alike may be interested in the rowing blog Hear the Boat Sing, which features an interview by Tim Koch with our president, Dick Hylton-Smith, on the occasion of his 100th birthday.

Wednesday 20 February — Changes to the Photo Gallery

Some of you with time on your hands (Lionel?) may have noticed some subtle changes to our photo gallery recently. To ease your webmaster's burden, the gallery structure is now held on a database, which makes it much easier to look after it, and you may have noticed one or two changes in the navigation. Today, in one step towards making the website more mobile/tablet-friendly we give you the ability to touch/click the right side of an image to navigate to the next one, the left side to go to the previous one and (as always) the centre to take you back to the thumbnails. Try it on our latest event or anything else you fancy.

Saturday 26 January — The Quintin Head

What a change in the weather! On Friday there was rain and snow across the country, but the day of the Quintin Head dawned with blue skies and relatively warm air temperature, considering the time of year. Once again the weather gods were smiling on us. It was another record entry for the race - this year 197 crews, of which 182 crossed the start and finish lines. Unfortunately a number of clubs were struck down with illness and had to rearrange and inevitably scratch some of their crews. We suspect that the Univeristy of East Anglia found the driving conditions in their neighbourhood a little tricky, as none of their crews put in an appearance. As well as a large entry we had a new upstream course, with the start, as ever, at Hammersmith Bridge, but the finish moved to the far end of Chiswick Quay Marina, about 400m. above Chiswick Bridge. This meant you could watch the finish of the race from the comfort of the neighbouring clubhouses, and many did.

Imperial College dominated, not only retaining the overall headship, and with it the Elite pennant, but also winning open IM1 (7th overall) and women's IM2 (59th overall and second fastest women). The women's headship and women's Senior pennant were won by Thames, finishing 46th overall, with their clubmates taking the women's IM3 pennant. Upper Thames RC, in their first appearance in the race, did well, finishing fourth to win the Senior pennant and their Masters D crew finished 31st to take the pennant for that category, beating our own Masters crew by 2.7 seconds. St. Paul's School were also double pennant winners with their IM2 crew in fifth place overall and their J16 crew 43rd, well ahead of their rivals. The University of Bristol, regulars at this event since 2006, won the open IM3 pennant for the third year running, and have yet to go home empty-handed.

Other pennant winners: King's College School, J18; Westminster School, Novice; London Oratory School, J15; Tideway Scullers, Masters E/F; Molesey, WIM1; St. Geroge's College, WJ18; King's College London, WN; Kingston Grammar School, WJ15.

Of our own crews, the semi-scratch Elite VIII finished 17th in a time three tenths of a second outside 14 minutes, the Masters D crew were 33rd= in 14 min. 27.6 sec. and the IM1 crew were 45th in 14 min. 49.8 sec. It was good to see a bit more depth in our entry this year.

Full results may be found on this website at ../quintinhead/2013/results.html.

Our thanks go to all the officials and volunteers who helped to run this event, to MAABC for use of their facilities, to all the competitors, and last, but not least, to the weather gods.

Photographs from the pennant winners may be found at http://quintinboatclub.org/gallery/image.php?ref=1507 and of the Quintin crews at http://quintinboatclub.org/gallery/image.php?ref=1526.

Saturday 5 January — QBC Masters Hit the Velodrome

A Happy New year to all our readers!

Some of our masters kicked off the new year with a trip to the depths of Hampshire, to visit the Calshot Velodrome. The party was organised by Pauline Bird and a group of ten male and female rowers (mostly) took to the track for a three-hour session on Saturday. The velodrome is situated at the mouth of Southampton Water in an old aircraft hangar that used to house the huge Sunderland flying boats that were used as submarine hunters by RAF Coastal Command during the Second World War. Other facilities at the centre include climbing walls and a dry ski slope. None of the party had done any velodrome cycling before, but our excellent coach, Olympian team pursuit cyclist Harry Jackson (Tokyo and Mexico Olympics) soon had everyone comfortably flying around the banked track, team-pursuit-style.

All in all, it was a fun way to spend three hours on a Saturday afternoon and quite a contrast from our rowing training. The rates for booking are very reasonable, all necessary equipment is provided and, as previously mentioned, the coaching was excellent. More details may be found at http://www3.hants.gov.uk/calshot/track-cycling.htm.

The party consisted of Pauline, her son Will, her friend from TSS Fiona and her partner Peter, Hilary Cook and her partner Peter, and Quintin masters Pete Meaney, Geoff Peel, Richard Lonergan and Roger Hine.

Photographs from this event may be found at http://quintinboatclub.org/gallery/image.php?ref=1497.

 

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