Afternoon division of day two at Monmouth Regatta, 750m sprint races masters 2x competition for me.
We met our competition from Gloucester earlier in the day and watched them compete in the masters 4x category, yesterday they won the masters 4x, however this morning it was not to be, they lost in the final to Exeter Rowing Club.
Our race was originally scheduled for 15:32, although we managed to get it brought forwards slightly and actually raced at 15:24.
Only the one heavy shower in the morning, then another shower just before we boated for our race, so really lucky with the weather today.
With nobody offering to help us boat, Mark F and I headed down to the start on our own and paddled up to the start.
This was my first time steering this course and was hoping we had the ‘middle’ lane so I would not need to worry about hitting any trees.
It must have been my lucky day as we were assigned the ‘middle’ lane and once we had turned and arrived at the start were informed that we would have a 12 second head start.
The Gloucester crew were masters C and this gave them a 5 second handicap allowance, however we were masters E and entitled to a 17 second handicap allowance, 12 seconds being the delta difference.
The umpire called ‘Staines Attention’, then ‘Go’ and then started counting down the seconds for Gloucester to wait.
Mark F and I had a reasonable start, then proceeded to put as much distance between ourselves and the Gloucester crew as we could in those 12 seconds.
Finally the Umpire called ‘Gloucester Attention’, ‘Go’ and they were off and chasing us down.
I probably checked our direction way more times than I actually needed to but was petrified of steering into any boats heading up river.
We maintained a steady 30-31spm over the course at an average pace of 1:54.5/500m.
Whilst the Gloucester crew drew back a little of the gap, we successfully kept them at bay for a win by 1 1/2 lengths.
Carry the boat back, then head off to collect our oars and medals.
Staines also had a win today in the open J15 1x category.
Packed up my tent and headed back to London