The first action of the 2023 regatta season for Club members came on April 22nd and 23rd when the Junior, Senior and Masters squads visited two of the UK’s three multi-lane international courses at Nottingham and Strathclyde Park.
Junior Inter Regional Regatta
Durham ARC had members in six of the entries selected to represent the Northern Region at the Junior Inter Regional Regatta (JIRR) at the National Watersports Centre at Holme Pierrepont, Nottingham on Saturday, several forming part of composite crews with other Northern clubs. The JIRR is for J14 to J16 age groups and sees Juniors from the 12 British Rowing regions pitted against one another in time trials and finals raced over a six-lane course, with points awarded according to finishing position going towards a Victor Ludorum competition.
A DARC/Durham School J14 4x+ combination including Alex Lowes, Quinn Mosley, Jason Wrack and Georgia Curry (cox) finished 3rd in the A final to take the bronze medal.
Jonny Cleugh went one better to take the silver medal in the J15 1x, while Will Terry reached the A final finishing 6th in the J16 1x.
DARC’s Patrick Lakey in the Tyne ARC/DARC/Durham School/St Leonard’s J15 4+ finished 2nd in the B final for 8th place overall, the same position as Lucas Pippet and Joe Kennedy-Wharton in the DARC/Tyne ARC/Durham School J16 8+.
In the J14 Girls 4x+ DARC’s Jasmine Kane, Eleanor Wesencraft-Colledge, Amelie Jones, Isabelle Maddison and Elouisa Wilks (cox) finished in 10th place.
Altogether the North won 3 silver and 5 bronze medals, the other silvers coming from City of Sunderland’s WJ14 1x and Tyne ARC’s WJ16 4-, with the remaining bronze medals going to Durham School’s J16 2x, and Hexham’s J14 1x, J15 4x+ and WJ15 4x+.
Results of individual races can be found on the JIRR website.
After a full day of racing Thames Upriver ran out winners in Boys, Girls and Overall categories, while the North placed a creditable 7th in Boys events, 8th in Girls and 8th Overall.
The Victor Ludorum table is here and Event Ranking here.
Deputy Chair of the Organising Committee Jess Eddie was impressed by the calibre of racing “Junior Inter-Regional Regatta is such an important race for so many young juniors. A lot of the national team members have certainly started their multi-lane racing here, and for some it’s the first big race of their junior careers.”
Photos from AllMarkOne are available here.
Scottish Rowing Spring Regatta
Four Senior and one Masters Women’s crews went to the 8-lane Strathclyde Park near Motherwell for the Scottish Rowing Spring Regatta held on Saturday, April 22nd and Sunday April 23rd, handling the breezy conditions well to return with two gold, two silver and one bronze medals.
The competition is held under the Scottish Rowing Rules of Racing rather than the British Rowing ones, and is combined with the Scottish Student Sport Championships, which led to some rather complicated arrangements.
To make best use of the available lanes several races consisted of more than one event. This saw the DARC Senior Women’s 4x- and 4- drawn to race side by side in the same race on Saturday but in separate events, the W4x- of Gabrielle Maxfield, Lillian Muskett, Ellie Cushen and Anna Golightly winning their final against Stirling RC, while the W4- of Lucy Beresford, Rachel Wilson, Shannon Grealis and Lucy James finished second to St Andrew BC in theirs.
Race result here.
The Men were in action on Sunday when David Beeby, William Standing, Thomas Woods and Elliot Kay finished second over 2000 metres in the Open Restricted 2 4x- in another race that combined 4x and 4- races (Restricted 1 being for crews with no more than 6 wins in Scottish Rowing events, and Restricted 2 for those with no more than 2).
Race result here.
David and Elliiot were in action again later in the day, overcoming the challenge of Sunderland and Talkin Tarn to win the Restricted 2 2x event, in a race that also included the Scottish Student Sport Open Intermediate 2x.
Race result here.
Meanwhile the Masters Women’s B 4x- of Fiona Ashton, Kate Sowden, Rebecca Chilcott and Sarah Buist, racing over the standard Masters distance of 1000 metres, took third place in the WMasA-C 4x- Final.
Race result here.
Results of all races over both days have been provided by RowResults.
The season ahead
As the season gets into full swing next weekend is set to be another busy one, though without any involvement for DARC, with Dorney Lake in use for Wallingford Regatta on April 30th and the Junior Sculling Regatta on May 1st, while the 3-day British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) Regatta gets underway at Holme Pierrepont on Saturday April 29th.
Durham City Coronation Regatta and Coronation Sprints fills the following weekend, on Sunday 7th and Monday 8th May, the first of six Northern regattas, not forgetting Durham Regatta on June 10th and 11th.
Once again multi-lane regattas are attracting large entries, with events in the coming weeks including Holme Pierrepont hosting Nottingham City Regatta on May 13/14th and the British Rowing Masters Championships on June 10th/11th, while the third multi-lane location at Dorney Lake hosts the National Schools Regatta on May 26/27/28th and the Metropolitan Regatta on June 3rd/4th.
Juniors will get their opportunity to go to Strathclyde Park when the British Rowing Junior Championships is staged there between July 14th and 16th.
With their greater accessibility it will be interesting to observe the effect on events of the impetus of the new disciplines of Coastal Rowing and Beach Sprints.