Kingston Regatta

Saturday was racing for many of the older years. The course was 1000m, from Raven’s Ait to Kingston Bridge. GMS raced a variety of boat types, taking the opportunity to get some final season regatta practice in small boats. This proved challenging, in what was incredibly bouncy water. Charlotte Greening and Sophie Wharfe competed well down the course gaining invaluable experience.

We took further opportunity to get our Year 10s experience racing a year up, both crews handled themselves well and will be better prepared already for next season’s racing.

Our race victories came in the form of Open 8+ and Open 4+. Both of which contained some old faces of GMSBC in Henry Gavin and Hugo Loretto.

The open 8+ had a tight race against our newest competitor that we seem to meet at most regattas: Claires Court! The Eight raced very well over the 1000m course, eventually winning a close affair by half a length.

The Eight next competently dispatched its competitor in the final.

The open 4+ faced competition from a group of athletes from the USA, who were in the UK for an international training camp. The 4+ raced really well, despite the stroke rate being slightly lower than for the ‘old heads’ were used to; the slight lack of sharpness did not prevent them winning the event.

Congratulations to Rafael Quinn, Joe Cogan, Owain Meredith, Ethan Hunt, Sal Dunn, George Spencer, Charlotte Greening, Henry Gavin (alumni) and Hugo Loretto (alumnui).

On Sunday we returned to the same location, however, the course had been halved in distance to 500m.This distance often creates some very tight races, which did not disappoint at this regatta.

We raced our Year 8s (J13), for some this was their first race. J13 rowing is a very common starting age for girls and in particular girl’s private schools. Our girls faced off against Surbiton High School and Putney High School. This race had to be restarted due to poor steering (from the other crews) and this continued in to the re-race. While it caused some difficulty for our girls, they performed admirably and showed off their immense potential.

Our boys raced against an upcoming club from London called Team Keane, while this crew trains on the tideway and should be better suited to the bouncy water they faced at 18:30 it was in fact the GMS rowers that handled the conditions the best: roaring away to a one length lead. This pressure resulted in Team Keane to struggle further and snap a blade in the process of racing.

Our girls in Year 10 raced really well in an incredibly tight event, winning their first race by a canvas and losing their second race by a canvas.

Further tight racing occured when our victorious J14 girls took to the water. Bea Radnedge, Bea Spence, Natasha Pendlebury, Lucy Platt and Kayla Shillito raced in three tight competitive rows,  and managed to ensure that their bows crossed the line first to win the WJ14 4x+.