A bright sunny autumn day was welcomed by all who attended the Nephthys Regatta and Head. In the regatta section, the mens crew had two entries named Four (Greg Hodgins, Carsten Heide, Sean Ross and Phil Biggin) and Midable (Richard Holland, Raph Perera, Francisco Gonzalez-Gonzalez and Kaz Toeda) in the Open IVs catergory. The Midable crew raced at some ridiculous hour (9am) and raced superbly to beat St Annes by the seat of their pants. Midable then raced again, (semi-final) against St Catz, sadly losing by a couple of lengths.
Four had a bye in the first round to race Trinity in the semifinal. Four rated very low (~30ish), but efficieny and rhythm was the order of the day as they were in control of the whole race and convincingly beat Trinity by a couple of lengths. Thus, the final of the open IV race was Four vs St Catz. In fact, these two crews had exactly the same times over the Kingston Head race and so a real crowd pleaser was in prospect. The crowd was not disappointed – Four got the better start and had half a length on the St Catz crew for most of the way. People at the boat house thought it was all over, but it wasn’t. Somehow, St Catz managed to claw back the half length deficit and snatch victory by a canvas (so I’m told) in the last 150m! A thoroughly enjoyable event.
In the head races, the men’s novice A boat (who were supposed to be in the novice regatta section but got “omitted”) then decided they would race in place of the men’s first eight in the open VIII category. They performed admirably under the pressure and finished with a time of 4:39 – the only novice boat faster on the day was Keble with a time of 4:38.
Wolfson women’s eight (open category) performed well and finished with a joint top time with St Catz and Univ of 4:47.
Well done to all who rowed.