Monmouth Regatta is run over 2 days with 2 divisions each day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, you can enter both divisions, but cannot enter multiple boats in a single division.
The Saturday distance is 1,500m, the Sunday distance is 750m
We originally tried to enter open 4- for the Saturday morning and masters 4- for Saturday afternoon, then open 2x for Sunday morning and masters 2x for Sunday afternoon, however our masters 4- entry was rejected due to a lack of competition.
There were also a number of our junior crews entered in 4x, 2x and 1x races over both days.
We loaded our boats on the Thursday evening, rowing was abandoned because the river flow was high, the landing stage under 6″ of water and no competent steerers available to steer a 4x or 4-.
The trailer was driven up on the Friday evening and I drove up to my mother’s in Newent for the weekend that evening as well, Newent is only 30 minutes from Monmouth.
Saturday morning and I am checking our WhatsApp group chat and whilst we were supposed to be racing at 11:02 for our first race, it was now showing an additional crew and a 09:27 start.
We were originally supposed to be a straight final against Cardiff, but now had a semi-final against Swansea – the entries had apparently been updated late on Friday, hopefully everyone had seen the update on the chat as our bow steersman was heading up from Staines that morning and working to an 11:00 start time.
Fortunately he was already on his way having woken up early and decided to set off, so with any luck and hopefully no need to break any speed limits, he would arrive on time for the earlier race.
Myself, Mark F and Mark G were staying nearby arrived around 07:45 and set about rigging the boat.
We informed the race official who was checking crew readiness that out bow man, Andy P, was on his way but might be delayed.
Fortunately Andy P arrived at around 08:45, just in time for us to take the boat round for scrutineering, pair up with our opposition and head out onto the water.
We knew we were in trouble when the Swansea University crew performed a tap turn whilst polishing their 6-packs and heading up to the start, we also heard the umpire congratulate them on their recent win in the ‘Welsh Boat Race‘ against Cardiff University (Swansea have won the last 9 times it has actually been held).
Oh well, let’s give it our best shot and at least put in a good effort so as not to disgrace ourselves.
It is a ‘free start’ so no stake boats, we pull up to the start line, are more or less level and the umpire calls ‘Swansea, Staines, Attention’, ‘Go’.
The Swansea crew disappear almost immediately and are nearly a length up before we have done 10 strokes, we settle into our slightly higher than normal race pace of 34spm and attempt to chase them down.
By 500m they are around 2-3 lengths ahead and already starting to slow down.
We continue at 34spm and giving it everything.
Ultimately we don’t have a chance, they drift across the line having severely rated down and wait for us to cross, the umpire generously calls it ‘3 lengths’ although ‘easily’ would be far more accurate.
We were happy with our performance having averaged 1:38.9/500m (with the stream) for the 1,500m race.
To be fair the Swansea crew did the same to the Cardiff University crew at 12:16, so if they hadn’t turned up we might have made a decent race out of the original pairing of us against Cardiff University.
At least that made us feel slightly better about our performance.
We de-rigged the boat, said goodbye to Andy P and settled in to watch the rest of the day’s racing.
Unfortunately none of the Staines crews won their events and one was disqualified for rowing directly into their opponent’s path and impeding their progress.
At the end of the day I headed back to my folks for dinner and some rest, I would be returning bright and early Sunday morning for day two.