St Neots women visit Henley Masters
St Neots Rowing Club sent a women’s masters D coxed four to Henley Masters last week. The crew of Ali Brown at stroke, Lynne Taylor, Louise Rushworth and Helen Knowles at bow, were coxed by Rachel Tackley over the 1,000 metre course. The crew had only recently been put together in this formation, but with coaching from Ed Porteus over the previous few weeks had worked hard to get a competitive four together.
Conditions for the races were extremely good with a very light tail wind, and in the beautiful setting at Henley. The event is a shortened version of the prestigious course used for Henley Royal Regatta and attracts overseas crews from as far afield as America and Australia.
The semi-final took place in soaring temperatures on Friday and the crew took a comfortable 3 boat length win over Minerva Bath in 4 minutes, 17 seconds. They knew they had a greater challenge in the final on Saturday against Ross Rowing Club. In even higher temperatures they put in a really strong challenge but lost by just half a length, having pulled back from being one length down at the 500m point. Even the following umpire congratulated both crews on a good race, the winning time for which was 4.01, so the St Neots crew proved that they were competitive.
The senior squad will be taking part in the exciting Cambridge Town Bumps this week, with a men’s and women’s crews in the top divisions each evening from Tuesday to Friday.
The weekend of 27 and 28 July sees the club hosting its two-day regatta weekend and hopes to see many St Neots townsfolk supporting their local club by sharing in the fun and cheering on the home side.