Christchurch Rowing Club in full house at Abingdon Head
CHRISTCHURCH Rowing Club’s ladies, juniors and masters returned home with a bumper haul of medals from the last Head race of the season at Abingdon Spring Head.
Over 350 boats from all around the UK took part over a 2,000-metre upstream course on a picturesque part of the Thames.
Trying to keep warm against a biting wind, the Christchurch juniors took to the water early. For some this was a warm-up for the National Inter Regional Regatta and the Junior Great Britain trials later in the month.
Sol Hewitt sculled really quickly to win his J17 category and also the cup for the fastest junior sculler. His training partner, Will Tate, followed this with a win in J16 and they combined later in the day for the J17 double sculls which won their category whilst recording an incredible sixth best time of the day over all boat types.
Molly Morris had a very busy day with entries in the J16 and J17 single scull categories. First up was the J16 singles where a smooth row over the course gave her a 16 second win over her closest competitor.
Molly then stepped up a category and produced an even faster time to win the J17 single sculls for her second medal of the day.
Christchurch’s J15 double of Cian Everett and Josh Brangan displayed power and aggression as they crossed the finishing line to pick up the prize for the J15 double sculls.
The masters’ quads raced later in the day and the first one down was the men’s masters of Andy Galloway, Andrew Holloway, James Reynolds and Rob Standley who looked extremely strong as they passed the cheering spectators to record a win over 25 seconds from their nearest competitor of Henley Rowing Club.
The Christchurch women’s master’s quad of Faye Standley, Jane Rafferty, Julia Fabrizi and Rachael Williams followed them down knowing that they had strong competition from a notoriously strong masters club, Falcon. Keeping their rhythm going over the full course, they were rewarded with a two second win in their category.
For Christchurch Rowing Club the focus shifts to side by side racing as they enter the summer season.
