Gloucester Autumn Head, October 27th

28th October, 2024

On an incredibly bright, warm and sunny Sunday, seven of our juniors travelled to Gloucester to take part in the Autumn Head Race. At 9am, boating started on time with Charlotte P heading up the 7.5km course in her J18 single, to get the start line. Here she sat until 11.30am when her race took place… quite a long wait being the first to boat and last to race. The actual 5km head race came as light relief from sitting and balancing! Once back at the club she then had 20 mins to eat and drink before heading back up in her composite double with Avon – where she came a respectable third. An exhausting day, covering 25k of rowing, 10k of racing and lots of sitting!

The afternoon division saw our J16 boys double, Tom C and Ethan W, race again at Gloucester. They showed enormous improvement both in skill and stamina. The competition was tough but they stayed in touching distance throughout the course. They will be ones to watch as the season progresses.

Heading out for their first ever Minerva race experience, were Tullulah and Martha who were joined by Anoushka and Alice H in the J16 Quad, coxed by the fabulous Sue Lees. They put on a fantastic performance, with great builds at each 500 metre mark and a great pace increase in the final metres catching up to the crew ahead.

Having only sat in the boat for the first time eight months ago, rowing in a competitive head race gave these juniors a lot to feel proud about.

A huge thank you to Richard and Laura for towing the boats and to our parents who made the day possible. The parent and crew help with de-rigging and rigging boats was superb – every hand was made available and the job of getting the boats rigged and back into the Boathouse when we returned late that night was carried out like a Formula One pit stop team!