The regatta season continues with more success for MIRC with Novice crews "popping their cherries"!
Nottingham City Regatta
The seniors gained two victories at Nottingham. Chris Mollison and Matt Nicholls continued preparation for the henley campaign with a win in the IM1 2-, and the Novice Quad won convincingly with a fast time of 7.02 over the 2000m quad (pictures and names of the latter from someone would be good).
Metropolitan Regatta
No wins this time, but a couple of encouraging 2nd places at this top regatta. Our Henley IM1 4- were beaten into second place by a dominant Isle of Ely/Rob Roy four, and Mollison and Nicholls came 2nd in the Senior 2-. good preparation for Henley.
Peterborough Regatta
The Masters C crew of Jez Massey, Darren Prentice, Bob Barwick and Ali Machin - coxed by Dani James won their novice pot in the Open (Masters A) category. A write up may be on its way...
With only a couple of outings in the Filippe and as a crew, confident is not a word we could have used to describe how we felt – we had been drawn against five universities in the first heat, including Oxford Brookes and Nottingham University, the latter of which contained Maidstonian Ali at bow. The format was that the first two in each of the three heats would go through to the final. Third and fourth would have to battle in out in the repechage, with only the winner of that going through.
At the start, the whole crew put the power down together, and the first three strokes felt controlled – Jo called for us to wind, and we did willingly – taking the rating up and up, with the Filippe responding well. The boat surged out the blocks, and I was aware that we were up with the pack after the first ten strokes. It felt good and we settled down to a good rhythm, rating 38. The stride was called a little later than usual and I could feel the extra length kicking in, and the boat holding its speed. Rating stayed at 38, and felt comfortable. All I could hear was Jo urging us on, the clunk of the blades in the gates, and the rushing of water beneath the boat.
After 500m we became aware that we had left a couple of crews behind us – still pacing along at 38, seeing this could only have helped. We left the push later than we would usually, with another stride around 800m in. The rating dropped to 37, with the crew still feeling comfortable rowing long and strong.
1250m down, and I’m not sure what happened in the last minute or so – the water is coming past us at quite a rate, and I know we’re rowing well, and rowing fast. We’re gaining on Nottingham University and the others are in our wake. Lancaster, who were to the outside of us, have dropped out of sight. We’ve settled at 36, but the boat hasn’t lost any speed. We getting cover, and the boat is set – I think we’ll keep it here.
1500m down and it’s neck and neck with Nottingham. They’ve had a storming first three quarters, but our cruising speed is slightly higher and they’re rattled. They put on a push and Jo tells us they’re looking over, no doubt worried. They push too soon though, and when we put on a push at 300m to go, we catch them and it’s level – Jo is screaming at us as we move past them, one man at a time – “This is PERSONAL” shouts Jo as she moves towards being level with Ali, who is at bow.
BEEP. We cross the line. I think we got ahead. Jo knows we got ahead. We all know though that we had just rowed the best race of the season so far. Looking around I can see the other three eights (UCL, Lancaster and Southampton) still some way behind – we were straight through to the final! No repechage! We had won by a third of a length, with a time of 6:10, which made us the fastest qualifiers.
The repechage was not so closely fought, with HSBC coming through first to beat three universities to the last spot in the final, making the line up Maidstone, Nottingham Uni, Oxford Brookes B, Lancaster Uni, Liverpool Uni, Glasgow Uni, and HSBC. With five universities this wasn’t going to be easy but with a good row and a heat win under our all in ones, we hoped to be with the pack all the way.
We can be seen here in the final at the 0.55 second point of this clip
Lining up in lane 5, it was a shame not to be given the middle lane, but more important things needed to be considered. The lady read out the names of the finalists, and called “Attention”.
Once again, we took the first three strokes well. The boat accelerated quickly and we were seven abreast going through the first hundred metres. We settled more quickly this time to a comfortable rhythm at 36, but Brookes were pulling away.
500m in and Jo called for the push. We knew we had it in us and we needed to put the extra power down to catch up. We covered the second 500m a second quicker than Brookes, and we were eating in to their lead. The boat was moving quickly, but there were a couple of sloppy strokes, and we all gritted our teeth and made it better.
From the 1000m mark, Brookes matched us but I could see we were ahead of most of the crews. We took up the power, the rating creeping up to around 37, and going through the 1500m mark there was less than a second between us. It was then that Nottingham made their move, pushing through Brookes from their position directly behind Brookes where they couldn’t be seen. Jo called a push shortly after, and the rate was taken up with the power – we were rating 40 and inching ahead of Brookes, but Nottingham were matching us and maintaining their edge. We powered on until it felt like our lungs would explode and our legs would melt, and on hearing the beep, we weren’t sure who had edged it. The whoops of joy from the Nottingham crew sealed our fate – we had lost.
Taking the boat back to the trailer in silence, I learned that we had lost by 8 tenths of a second. That just made it worse for me, but, looking back, only 8 hours earlier we had arrived expecting to be going home at 10am, and here we were, gutted that we’d just lost the final.
The time we were given for that second 2k was 6:05.89 – and it was undoubtedly our best outing to date. We had excelled all expectations, and the race will forever be remembered in my mind as the greatest I have yet to compete in. With the men’s squad improving every week, we hope to build on our narrow miss at Reading Am, and we will be going full steam towards those pots. We’ve had a tantalising taste of victory at a good level, and we are hungry for more. And I’m confident that more will come.
On Saturday 30th and Sunday 31st May, representatives from Maidstone Invicta Rowing Club attended Metropolitan Regatta, at Dorney Lake, a glorious weekend for racing and spectating. Crews were required to race 2000m over the multilane straight course.
MIRC’s Junior eight consisting of Sam Blackwell, Ben Farrar, Morgan Hellen, James Crumpton, Alex Torbica, Will Tew, Josh Pendry and Craig Turner, coxed by Ross Porter, raced at Intermediate 1 on the Saturday and came third in their heat in a time of 6.47 and made it through to the finals. The eight had a storming race in the final and cleared the field to come first in a time of 6.30.
David Porter, Tom Mason, Tim Grant and Jon Farrar competed in Intermediate 1 coxless four and finished the course in a respectable 7.56.
The men’s Elite Double sculls of Stuart Hampshire and Chris Mollison competed in the afternoon and after a good race came third in a time of 7.25 beating opposition from London RC and Glasgow RC.
On Sunday, crews aimed to improve their times from the Saturday, the men’s Intermediate 2 eight consisting of Alastair Cooper, Stephen Slade, Geraint Evans, Guy Sticklee, Mark Tomkin, Richard Ridgeway, Will Purnell, Owen Mills coxed by Sue Mobbs were disappointed with their race and were fired up to compete in the Intermediate 3 category, they came third in this race and finished in a time of 6.32.
A change in crews members in the Junior eight from Saturday meant they didn't have as many points, so they could also race at Intermediate 3, including crew members Sam Blackwell, Ben Farrar, Jon Farrar, Tom Mason, Morgan Hellen, Tim Grant, David Porter and James Crumpton coxed by Ross Porter. They MIRC crew came first in their heat and went on to be the overall winners and completed the 2000m course in a time of 6.25 in the final.
Hampshire and Mollison competed in their Elite Double Sculls again and came second in a time of 7.20.
A new entry for the Sunday was an Intermediate 1 Quadruple scull formed of (from left to right in the photograph) Craig Turner, Stuart Hampshire, Matt Nicholls and Chris Mollison. They had a fantastic race and were pushed on at the end with pressure from Tees Rowing Club, the MIRC crew finished in first place in a time of 6.32.
Maidstone Invicta Rowing Club would like to consolidate on their experience in the recent regattas and aim high for regattas in June and July, including Marlow Regatta on 20th and 21st June and Henley Royal Regatta 1st – 5th July.
