With the forecast set to rain last weekend, the sun shone rather nicely for Maidstone Invicta Rowing Club's (MIRC) first regatta of the season, hosted by Lea Rowing Club up on the River Lea (a tributary of the River Thames).
With MIRC entering only 8 crews, they came away with 3 wins in the Final, with 7 of the 8 crews making it to the Final for their category.
The first win of the day was the Mens Novice 4+ (Alastair Cooper, Geraint Evans, Sean Bennett and Will Purnell coxed by Liz Macham), who were up against Kings School Rochester. To get to the final, MIRC had beaten Broxbourne earlier that morning in the semi final.
The second win was a battling competition between two Maidstone Mens crews meetings in the IMS 2x Final, with Alastair Cooper (2nd win of the day) and Guy Sticklee beating off Richard Nicholls and Sean Bennett. The winning boat had been up against Kings School Rochester in the semi final, whilst the runners up had knocked out Medway Towns Rowing Club to reach the final
The final win of the day, also had Alastair Cooper in the crew, but this time he was coxing the Mens Vet Novices (Ollie Barton, Pete Kingsley, Tom Fuller and Alan Leeson), who were up against the local Lea crew.
The Womens I3 4+ crew won their semi final heat against Lea, but lost to Broxbourne in the final, and two vet doubles finals - Harry Salmon and Robin Chapman in Vet D/E and Anne and Harry Salmon in Mixed Vet C, both lost in the final.
This Sunday the Club is off to Dorney Lake to race in the Wallingford Regatta.
Laura Johnson
