Shanklin Sandown Rowing Club finished the season in perfectly relevant fashion at BTC Head of the River as rowers took home another 2 wins for the club, along with more fantastic results.
The 2 wins bring the clubs total for the season to a round number of 30 and with brilliant performances across the board, the club are well set up for winter training and next season.
Head of the River, held last Saturday (15th October) was a re-run of the event that was supposed to take place earlier in the year, and was graced with good flat conditions for the first division.
In Division 1, the club had 4 boats entered. First to come down the course was the Ladies Junior Four of Juliette Wrixon, Hannah Cusworth, Emily Andre, Stella Gamble and coxing his first ever head race, Ethan Walters. The 4 looked fantastic as they came under the Northam Bridge and had seemingly taken a strong lead of the crews that had set off behind them, this proved to be the case, with the crew taking the win by 14 seconds over the second placed crew.
Following shortly afterwards was the Men’s Junior Pair of Jamie Gamble and Henry Mudge, the duo looked strong coming under the bridge at Coalporters and finished fourth with a very strong time.
The final 2 boats in the first division were the single scullers Daisy Faithfull and Joe Robertson. Joe was racing the Men’s Novice Coastal Sculls, and with a fantastic row came home second to an excellent Southsea sculler. For Daisy it was an extremely close battle in the Ladies Junior River sculls, looking good down the course she too finished second, less than 10 seconds behind the winner.
The conditions worsened for Division 2, with the wind picking up and the tide turning, the water became difficult on the second half of the course. Shanklin had 4 boats also in this division.
The first to start was Alex Robertson in the Men’s Open River scull. In a closely run event and despite traffic Alex was able to take the win over Christchurch by just under ten seconds to take the clubs second win of the day.
Following shortly afterwards was the Men’s Open Double scull of Jamie Gamble and Henry Mudge. In a popular event they rowed extremely well to take fifth place.
Starting soon afterwards was the Mixed J16 Quad of Mia Phelan, Sophie Atkin, Riley Horrix, Ethan Walters and cox Emily Faithfull. The crew features 2 13-years-olds and 2 14-year-olds, all of whom did well just to compete. They earned a very commendable time and finished second in their event.
Shanklin’s final boat of the day was Daisy Faithfull rowing for time only in the Ladies Junior Coastal Sculls. Rowing well throughout Daisy too achieved a good time, and perhaps more importantly some valuable experience on the course.
The event was something of a reflection of the clubs season, with wins coming from many different events across both gender categories. All credit goes to BTC Southampton whom could have quite easily condemned the event and saved themselves some hassle after its cancellation in March. The club would finally like to thank Itchen Imperial Rowing Club for the lending of a boat and blades.
