Veterans Head of the River - 2012

Maidstone Invicta's Veterans continued their impressive start to the season with a 20.18 min 45th place at this year's Vesta Veterans' Head of the River.

We came to the event pretty confident in our abilities, and buoyed up in the knowledge that we would be using the "Ray Long". 

Liz Ridgway accepted our offer as cox and we were buoyed further that her timely bout of "food poisoning" last week made her 1 stone lighter on the day.  Not sure if anyone actually asked how she was ;).

I advised Liz to keep the number of pushes to one or two maximum, given we are old men; so she dutifully packed about 20 in.  The first 3 coming immediately after the start in order to overtake Bewl's Sunday crew.


The Bewl looking better than they rowed - 2 min 20 behind us.  Notice their equipment!

I advised our stroke, Geraint, to rate about 30, given that we are old men; so he dutifully maintained a rock solid 32 all the way.

I advised the crew to beware of the nasty chop and wind that always hits you after Hammersmith, and of course, the chop happened at Barnes.  It was much calmer after Hammersmith.

The relative calm after Hammersmith Bridge.  3 miles in and some of us are panting hard.

I gave up offering advice and sank back into my own annual private hell, which is rowing the Championship Course, and vowing never to do it again.

The crew behind us were noisy mustachioed Frenchmen from Boulogne, festooned in all sorts of strange clothing and looking like extras from "'Allo, 'allo".  They looked like they were only here for 'le Rost Bif', but they really pushed us all the way, only fading at the end and losing to us by just 7 seconds. 

Johnny Frenchman from Boulogne in the chop at Barnes.  They rowed much better than they looked!

We didn't see anybody else in the race, though we caught up on the 3 crews ahead of Bewl, so we knew we had done well.

We came 8th out of 40 in the Vet D category, and 5th of the UK crews.  Still lots to work on, but a good place to be.

Thanks to Kate Povall and Archie Hodgkinson for support and welly monitoring.

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