Hampton Court and Dittons Regatta 2011

Hi All

Let's set the scene for this crucial Head to Head that occurred at Hampton Court & Dittons Regatta yesterday. Points achieved in the last 2 years at this event were:

You can see that this is a home event where DSPC usually capitalise with their Seniors out in force where we're unable to compete. So I had to gamble with some new pairings, which paid off with 2 of them winning at the end of the day, showing the flexibility of the squad that we have now.

This was never going to be easy in a field that was 50% up on last year's entries & saw racing going on into the early evening.

The first win of the day came from the experienced skiffing of Crispin Allen in 'The Edward Bell Cup' for Gents Junior Senior Singles, not that we got to see the Cup, I only realised that there was one when I re-read the programme. Crispin got to meet my opposition in the final after I had an atrocious start in my heat, popping my blade, causing me to slide on the seat to my right leaving me floundering whilst William Davies from WBC pulled away. It just goes to show that you can have a bad race whether an old hand or a novice, you've just got to put it behind you & concentrate on the next one. So it was great to see Crispin achieve a comfortable win in 3 min 24 sec, the verdict 'Easy'. Nothing was particulary easy competing on this length of course. Crispin is now only a 1/3rd of a point away from being Senior in singles, maybe next week at Chertsey!

Next up came some of our ladies, with Jacqui Doukupil jumping into the coxes position showing her team spirit in allowing me to swap in Caroline Matthews to race with Laura Goddard in the Ladies Novice Doubles. Fielding the strongest crews means taking some tactical decisions that thankfully paid off, even when we had a good crew in the first place. It really helps to know that I have a group of individuals that support me in this process in order to reap the wins for the Club, so thanks Jacqui & others that help to build on , dug deep to win their final in 3 min 23 sec by 1 1/3 of a length.

Winning your first singles race is special & none more so on a long course such as this, where the Surrey bay beckons & some have to achieve this the long way round. The first of our two winners to achieve their victory was Verena Diehl in the Ladies Novice Restricted Singles, with a first heat win over another Skiff Club member, Felicity Khoo, who acuited herself very well. Verena went on to race her WBC opponent to win in 3 min 51 sec in very comfortable style again with the verdict 'Easy'.

The second singles event, the Gents Novice Restricted, saw Christopher Coveney showing again his composure under pressure to win not one but two heats against WSPC & DSPC to reach the final against our very own Alex Farrell. Someone suggested the need for a drugs test on Christopher but he assures me it's all in the apple juice that he's been drinking .......... slightly aged apple juice & maybe fermented a bit. Alex however had also shown his skills in an easy first heat win over WSPC & despite a slightly wider course, showed great determination ts.o win in 3 min 37 sec in a manner comparable with the other two singles wins.

Prior to his singles success, Alex Farrell formed part of one of my hopefull new pairings with Kim Mollett who togther, coxed by Heather Bateman, beat WSPC to progress from Novice Resticted to Novice in the Gents Doubles category. Well done team, all those few minutes of intensive training last week obviously paid dividends.

A more frequent pairing in Dave (Stretch) Strassburg & Henry Roffey saw the duo coxed by John Previte win the all Skiff Club Gents Novice Doubles straight final, thankfully only adding another 1/3rd of a status point to their status, preserving their Novice status for another day.

Back in the boat goes Henry Roffey & back in the boat goes Laura Goddard, again beautifully coxed by Jacqui Doukupil in the Mixed Novice Double Sculls final final of the day. Having already succeeded in 2 previous heats the team set up a blistering race that had us screaming from the DSPC balcony as they beat the WSPC team in an exceptionally fast time of 3 mins 9 secs to win by the closest of margins, just 2ft. Not only another Ormiston point in the bag but this resulted in a very quiet Sunday at home. Why? I thought I was shouting loudly but obviously Amanda was being equally competitve from the balcony & lost her voice next day. Say no more ......

The final tally .............. DSPC 9 points The Skiff Club 7 points a very good result.

So you'd have thought they'd all had enough of racing for the day, perhaps they had but when has that ever stopped me. Well I couldn't let the other Clubs get away uncontested in the Dongoling Races. Cajoled in the most painless way possible I mustered up 2 teams; The Skiff Club Vets that'll be the mature team then of Mr President (Keith Shore), my good self, Amanda, Stephen, Martin & steersman Tom Millest & The Skiff Club Youngsters of Alex, Caroline, Henry, Verena, Crispin & Brind, ok so Brind might have been in disguise. Quite expecting to compete against each other, we were actually split to race in the Senior & Junior events. Thankfully we'd received some expert tuition on the balcony from Wargrave on our technique, which we shared with both crews to great effect. Who'd have thought that with the majority of the crew members saying beforehand 'what exactly is dongoling' that both crews would command the respect of the onlookers as we both secured our wins in the finals. If there's a Dongoling league table then we're top of it !!!! Watch out Sunbury Regatta here we come.

Onto next week at Chertsey & Shepperton Regatta where the majority of our new novices are away & it falls to our stalwarts to 'Carry on regardless'. Do we have a Babs in the team? We all hope to see as many of you as possible come down to support us in this most idylic of English country meadow settings.

Cheers

Rog