BHBC Winter Head VIII - 4th in IM3+ division
In characteristic BHBC style - another completely scratch crew was entered for Winter Head. Tom Mitchell-Williams and Dave Pattinson were new faces in the crew, whilst a back injury meant that Shailen was replaced by 2999er James McMillan…
With the divisions running late, a 30 min queue gave us a bit of time to carry out emergency repairs to our decidely intermittent cox box. Thanks to Peter for bringing down a new box and speaker to resolve this.
Finally with a bit of room to get 8 rowers moving together, the row down to the start was a little shakey to begin with, however we eventually found our rhythm moving round ditton. A nice steady state from there to round first post buoyed confidence that we were more than able to row scratch.
With Black Prince going off ahead of us, we had a good benchmark to set our performance on. With a different race plan to Autumn Head, we negotiated the first 1/3 of the race smoothly. Coming out of grassy with a solid platform, we prepared for a big push to set up Ditton and the reach.
The composure on the reach was better than our previous race, with the power holding on for the length. A strong push out of the railway bridge lifted the rate to 33, which was held for the rest of the race.
Final time 8:53. QCBC M1 got 8:17. Black Prince in our division got 8:55, and in the the previous division they got 8:48. We were 4th out of 5 IM3 crews (2nd in Invitational Men’s VIIIs). C: J. Cribb S: C. Adams 7: N. Gates 6: J. Kirton 5: J. McMillan 4: G. Harpur 3: M. Beverton 2: D. Pattinson B: T. Mitchell-Williams