Gloucester Head, 16th March

18th March, 2025

Gloucester Head is the first event this crew of Mark Melbourne, Richard Thomas, Tim Birtwistle and Ian Burdis managed to race at after the three previous attempts were cancelled due to bad weather, so it was with some relief when we left Bath on a lovely sunny Sunday morning for the drive up to Gloucester.

We were well prepared for the long row and wait at the start in cold conditions, even so it was a shock to the system when the starter said ‘Minerva, Go!’ and we burst into action with Ian at stroke setting a sharp rating of 34. This soon settled down to 30 as we pushed ourselves along the first 1200m of the bouncy Sharpness Canal.

Our competition from Worcester and Evesham were soon disappearing into the distance as we steadily pulled away. The sculling rhythm became easier as the canal flattened out and we were able to enjoy the exhilaration of making a quad cut through the water. We caught up with two mixed quads which were soon passed and we pushed on for the last 500m with calls of encouragement from Mark in the bows.

We won by over 1 1/2 minutes, it was good to get the first race out of the way and we next head towards racing at Alkmaar in four weeks time.

March saw the men’s masters squad get into their first races since the summer, as both previously entered events (Fours’ Head and Henley 4s and 8s) were cancelled due to bad weather. For some new members of the squad it was the first racing for even longer than that, with Francis claiming that the last time he rowed a head race was in 1990!

Gloucester Head was our first outing on a cold, but dry day with a chilly northerly giving us headwind for most of the 5km of the course. With only eight people in our squad we inevitably ended up needing a sub, and we were very glad to have Marcus Shaw from the senior men’s squad step at the last minute. Some slightly chaotic marshalling meant that we were held in the cold at the start for more than an hour, and only had about 10 strokes to warm up before crossing the start line. That made for a difficult first few minutes, but we eventually found a solid rhythm to push through the wind and post a decent time.

With only 2 crews racing Masters D we came a solid first, and were competitive with the other masters categories.