Boat club begin new season with decent Nottingham performance

by Harriet Edmonds | March 6th, 2007

YORK UNIVERSITY’S Boat Club made a solid start to the race season last weekend at BUSA Head of the River Rowing Championships.

The University’s Men’s and Women’s Eights crews travelled to Nottingham to compete in the 5km Head race on the River Trent.

This contributed to the biggest turnout the Championship Head has ever had, with 365 crews from Great Britain and abroad taking part.

UYBC had high hopes for their Senior Women’s Eight boat, racing in the Championship Eight category. The Senior four crew had previously dominated their category and had out-rowed the Senior three Women’s Eights in Doncaster during Week 5. They were labelled the fastest Women’s Eight of the competition and the Heads of the river Don; a title that the York’s Senior Men’s Eight had won last year.

At BUSA, they featured in the afternoon’s division, rowing the 5km course in 14 minutes 39 seconds. They came twelfth out of the 23 championship Eights, beating Warwick and Manchester, although narrowly missing Reading, who achieved 14 minutes 37 seconds. Captain Sarah Woods said “we were really pleased with the results, although slightly annoyed at being taken by Leeds, after we had beaten them at Doncaster two weeks before”.

The York Novice Women’s Eight also rowed in this division. They came 22nd out of 33 Novice Women’s Eights crews with a time of 16 minutes 15 seconds.

The morning witnessed the York Novice Men’s A and B Eight boat races take place. The B crew suffered what Novice Men’s Captain Lee Fisher called a “disaster”. One of the seats in their boat came off the slide 4km into the race, leading to a failure to do well in the rankings. Fisher said, “everyone did really well to carry on” especially as the majority of the crew had little or no racing experience.

The Men’s Novice A boat came 18th out of 40 crews, narrowly missing the next two fastest crews, completing the 5km course in just 13 minutes 46 seconds. They beat Leeds, Birmingham and Warwick Men’s Eights. It was Oxford Brookes’s Novice boat that dominated the category, snatching an impressive win.

The Boat Club are now focusing on the Men’s and Women’s Head of the River Races at the end of term, both 7km races that mark the height of the season.
They will also face a tough challenge when they come up against Lancaster in several races at the Roses, to be held in Week 2 of the Summer Term.