The Skiff Club Regatta report 2010

It wasn’t World War II yesterday on Trowlock Island – despite the almost paranormal appearance of an immaculately grey-painted Motor Torpedo Boat throbbing past our pontoon on its way to the Dunkerque ‘Little Ships’ rally – but there were “blood, sweat, toil and tears” all around us. And (for some) there was ‘winning through to the “sunlit uplands”’.

A regatta’s lifetime is a summer’s day (though Amanda’s relentless planning – and its success – began in September 2009). It started with the stakeboat-anchoring and course-laying team at 7am, dropping those concrete lumps with the bright orange buoys into a graceful arc stretching into the distance down Trowlock Island; mooring the dinghies holding our smart new ‘Regatta Warning’ signs; and conducting arcane calculations to position the stakeboats at the right distance to compensate for difference in stream and bend between the two stations. (All done by 8.20, and back to the club for bacon sandwiches !)

It ended in the dusk, with the smoke rising from the barbecue at the bottom of the club steps; libations of unfinished wine poured into Old Father Thames; all boats and equipment stored securely for another year (once the day’s accretion of water-snails had been removed from the buoy weights); and the sleek monochrome lycra-hugged bodies of the ‘pupae’ who had strained to such good effect in the heat of the day, transformed (in some cases!) into glittering, delicate, multi-coloured ‘imagos’ enjoying the dusk together on the balcony.

In between : tired racers stretched out and resting on our hot little patch of green England while the jazz band played from the shade of the tent, and puzzled canoeists threaded their way carrying their kayaks through the bodies and dogs to reach the water; hospitality indoors in the form of tea, beer, non-standard sandwiches, and cup-cakes with smiley faces, and Skiff Club kit for sale; half-forgotten stakeboat boys (without and then with life-jackets) bobbing alone out of earshot at the far end of the course; and a gleaming white slipper-launch with crimson cushions plying elegantly back and forth.

But it wasn’t all serenity. There were two worlds overlapping here. On the bank : blazers and ties, calm and smiles (except when absent-minded cruiser-drivers had to be yelled and gesticulated at, or in extreme cases pursued by launch and instructed as to their proper position on the river). And allowing a degree of fumbling with the race order as the number of racers left in the competition tapered steadily into the chilly late afternoon; causing some understandable grumbling but mostly born stoically.

Out on the water, where the racing happened : controlled violence. In race after race, men and women, young and differently aged, strove side by side against the common enemy – the voice in your head that says “I can’t”. Some pushed themselves beyond the limit, and had to be helped out of their boats and supported painfully to their seats (Wargrave’s brave F Taylor, after the Mixed Novice Doubles semi-final). Some were beaten when the effort applied exceeded for the moment the limits of their technical skill. The lucky few found that body, mind and technique all held together and were rewarded. And of course, it might be the same racer muttering darkly after one race lost, then beaming broadly after another race won.

You can’t reduce a day like this to a list of winners – especially on a day when many of our magnificent wins were at the expense of other Skiff Club members. That’s how it works when we create such an overwhelming entry, and other clubs can’t be induced to match it. But there was an extraordinarily high standard of racing in the Novice and Novice Restricted classes : Fran Kenden reflected later in the evening that the quality she had seen in our Ladies today was at the standard most Junior or even JS races were won at in the lean times a few years ago.

A couple of statistics to back that up : our victorious Mixed Novice Restricted Double won their final in 2:51, faster than our winning Mixed Junior Double (2:53) and only a second slower then Wargrave’s winning Gents Novice Double (2:50). And our victorious Mixed Novice Double was faster than all the above (2:47) in the last race of the day, despite having raced only 20 minutes earlier. Roger Haines will rightly point out that times are not directly comparable, being affected by wind and wave conditions at the time, and how hard the winning crew was pressed!

So, who was on the Skiff Club “winners’ roll” yesterday ? We won 8 Ormiston events, exactly half those on offer, with Valley winning 3, Wraysbury and Wargrave 2 each, and Dittons (saving themselves for the Inter-Clubs) just 1 and 2 Veteran events. This included a ‘clean sweep’ of the 3 Ladies Doubles events, and 3 of the 5 Mixed Doubles.

Everyone will have their own SC ‘star’ of the day, but you will see from the table

that some names appear more than once. Rachel Miller carried off the Junior trophies at both Ladies and Mixed Doubles, partnered successively by Amanda and Roger, in Finals less than half an hour apart – beating SC opponents in both! In the latter, Steve Hanscomb and Becky Golland had their bows in front with 100 metres to go but tragically ‘popped’ a blade and could not recover in time.

Jana Mandakova and Lesley Russell powered through their opposition and in winning at Novice secured their second promotion of the season, to Junior – awesome !

Sam Grey-Wilson, ‘stroked by the Navy’ in the shape of ocean-rowing Tom Lee, lifted her second pot of the season, in Mixed Novice Restricted, winning all 3 races ‘Easily’. Their SC opponents in the final (Collen Dawson and Tony Gordon) perhaps suffered from a very compacted racing schedule at the end of the day.

Our first victory of the day had come in the first race after lunch, when Lydia Blinston scored her first success in winning the Ladies Novice Restricted with Valeria Tretyak (coached, coaxed and coxed by Heather Bateman) – astonishing how much boat-speed these slender frames generate when technique is sound !

Last mention for the Ladies must go to our other double winner of the day, and winner of the final race partnered by ‘man of steel’ Martin Roche … Valeria. Hard to believe these were her first wins. I think all who watched will have been impressed by the true grit shown by these two, racing two of the last three races at the end of a long day. Valeria (at stroke!) said she was carried to the finish line on the tidal wave of cheering that greeted them as they entered the final stretch, through a semi-conscious mist of exhaustion and effort. Their opponents – previously unbeaten – sat slumped and incredulous in the middle of the river for minutes after their defeat.

But it wasn’t all the Ladies’ day ! Hamish Gaunt, who though JS in doubles had implausibly never won a singles event, beat Wraysbury opposition comfortably in both rounds on his home turf to win the Novice Restricted. And to my great relief I reaped the benefit of many practice runs over our course to notch my first singles win this year in the Novice - and finally made it to Junior!

You may have noticed (though would be too polite to comment) that all our winning men are ‘of a certain age’ – i.e. at least twice the average age of our fabulous new crop of ladies (girls?). I think it is to be celebrated that all our winning men this year (with the exception of the youthful and newly-married Steve Hanscomb) will not see 40 again – ok, 50 – and in one case 60. To have 10 grey-haired veterans still fit enough to skiff flat-out for 3 minutes and more, and win, is a source of great pride. So here’s to Keith Shore, Tony Gordon, Martin Roche, Roger Haines, Hamish Gaunt, Tom Lee, Crispin Allen, Richard Davies, Stephen Russell and me – and power to the backs of other oldies who are sure to join this list of winners soon! (And of course to our winning mature ladies Amanda, Fran, Janet, Kim and Lea. Lesley, I don’t count!)

BUT … there is a younger future too. It may not have been an Ormiston event, but I hope you noticed the winning time in the Skiff Club ‘Invitation’ Junior Doubles, where Daniel Lukes and Jo Davies (coxed by Lilli) beat – but did not annihilate – Syd Farrington and Louis Hollis ? Be afraid …

Thanks again to our wonderful Regatta Secretary, Amanda Leach and all her team of caterers, entertainers, marshals, administrators, boatmen and officials. And to all our participants and rivals. Let’s do it even better next year !