Maidstone Invicta rowing club (MIRC) headed off to Marlow International Regatta for Multilane racing at Dorney Lake on Saturday 21st June which was over 2000m and Sunday 22nd June over 1000metres.
Maidstone's first boat on the water was the Senior Coxless 4 (Josh Pendry, Will Tew, Alex Torbica and Craig Turner) where they came 2nd in their heat, in a time of 6:19.42. The final didn't go quite so well for them and they came 5th in 6:27.26
Next up was the Intermediate 8s, where the MIRC juniors (Simon Blackwell, Tim Grant, Lance Tredell, Tom Mason, Morgan Hellen, James Crumpton, Jon Farrar, Ben Farrar, coxed by Ross Porter came home 3rd in the heat qualifying for the reperchage, they raced a good race and managed to finish first in a time of 6:19.42, qualifying them for the Final, where they came 2nd to Hampton School. MIRC seniors (James Knight, Alastair Cooper, Geraint Evans, Mark Tomkins, William Purnell, Richard Ridgeway, Guy Sticklee and Owen Mills – coxed by Sue Mobbs) didn't have such a good race and finished last in their heat.
The Senior Crew of the previous race also raced at IM3 with a slight change to the crew and James Knight coming out of the crew to make way for David Porter, where they came home 5th in the heat.
The last race of the day for Maidstone was for Chris Mollison and Stuart Hampshire in the Mens Elite Doubles. They just lost out to a straight entry into the finals by coming 3rd so had to race in the reperchage where they came first, then qualifying for the final where they came 2nd in a time of 6:52.37
On the Sunday the regatta was split into AM and PM. This time the distance was only 1000metres. MIRC only entered one crew for the Sunday and that was for Intermediate 1 Mens Quad (Matt Nicholls, Chris Mollison, Stuart Hampshire and Craig Turner). In the morning the men came home first in the final in a time of 3:00.74 bringing home a plaque. Then in the afternoon the same crew raced again, but this time they came 2nd in a slightly faster time of 2:57.85.
Some of the Maidstone Invicta Mens crew are looking forward to competing at Henley Royal Regatta next week (1st – 5th July)
Laura Johnson
