Now coaches Alan and Bill vow to get them a new boat …
Durham Amateur Rowing Club has launched a fundraising campaign to buy a new eight for the Junior and Women’s squads. The idea is for sponsors and supporters to buy “pieces of eight” – riggers, seats, shoes, even the bowball, to help meet the funding gap of £7000 – before the new boat is delivered. The eight is needed if the promising rowers are to compete at regional and national regattas this summer.
Coach Alan Granlund said “We currently have the largest squad of committed juniors we have ever had, the gym has been full all winter and the ergos have done miles and miles. In amongst all this we had a J14 boy who won a silver at the National Indoor Rowing championships as a part of his training.”
At our own DURHAM HEAD we won 9 events from age range J14 to 18 and some senior events. At Tyne Head the J18 Boys won J18 8’s ( beating our club senior 1st 8), also J184+, IM24-, J164x- Girls won WNov4x+. The WJ15 girls entered a novice 8 and were only narrowly beaten by Newcastle University in their first race (decisively beating all the Durham colleges). Overall juniors were winners in 5 of 7 events entered.
At the Yorkshire Head, the Juniors won 7 events, MJ18 8s (beating the 1st 8), MJ184+, MIM34X+, MNOv2x, WNov4+, MJ161x, WJ154x+ only our elderly Auntie Betty, coxed 8 boat, put a damper on things.
Alan explained, “ the girls J15 8 rowing in Novice 8’s were only beaten by Leeds University and beat many WIM38s. At the end after using the elderly ‘Auntie Betty’, the boat had about 4 inches of water in it. It is their success, after overcoming the old leaky boat which augurs well for the future provided they can use a boat that does not leak. A new Janousek 8 would be ideal for them to be our first girls 8 entry into the National schools regatta in May.
“The success story has continued in the trials for the Junior Inter-regional Team, and results have been quite amazing. We were successful in 7 events giving us a major part of the team. JIRR is for ages 14-16 years and the Main event is on 27 April in Nottingham when our Northern team takes on regional teams from the rest of the country.”
Successful boats were MJ164x-, WJ164x-, Mj162-, WJ152x , MJ161x, MJ151x and MJ141x.
If you would like to buy any piece of an eight to enable our Junior team to achieve their potential, please download the following form.
Pieces cost from just £25 so please dig deep and help our Juniors rule the waves. Further details and the donation form can be found here PIECES of eight donation form