Regatta wins for the Canterbury Pilgrims Boat Club

The Canterbury Pilgrims Boat Club enjoyed a successful weekend at the recent Vichy International Masters Regatta in France. Pilgrims Nigel Press, David Cowderoy and Andrew Rudkin struck gold in three events; quadruple sculls, double sculls and single sculls.

For the quadruple sculls the Pilgrims found themselves one man short. In the absence of their indefatigable colleague, Ewan Pearson, who proffered lame excuses about family commitments, Nigel pressed Ian Frogatt of Bewl Bridge Rowing Club into service. We are very grateful to Bewl Bridge, whose hospitality we have now poached upon on several occasions, borrowing boats, equipment and club members. We are particularly grateful to Frank Llewellyn and Ian Frogatt for doing Pilgrims stripes and making up our numbers as honorary Pilgrims at the Metropolitan and Vichy regattas respectively.

Having had little practice, indeed none with Ian on board, it did not seem sensible to set our expectations too high. At the Pilgrims Henley drinks party, the President, Peter Ament had remarked that he had witnessed a flurry of emails concerning washed out head races, foot and mouth on the towpath and continuous wrangling over who was or was not available to make up crews. "Yes, but when are you going to win something", was his parting cry.

Our aim was therefore to get the Canterbury Pilgrims across the line first in something if we possibly could. The singles seemed the most likely possibility, since this was where our preparations and form lay. Success in the crew sculling, where preparation had been scant, seemed highly optimistic.

In practice on the eve of the regatta, the crew felt cohesive and pacy, setting off at a brisk 40ish in some of the practice pieces, settling to a promising 37. On race morning, the quads gathering in the starting area looked characteristically well drilled and practiced. The Italians, traditionally strong in crew sculling, looked professional and polished and some of the French looked equally competent. Our rate meter packed up before the start, so were racing blind on the rating, but we put knuckled down for a determined start. The first fifteen strokes were powerful and clean and looking up, we could see that we had gained a significant advantage on the adjacent crew. Perhaps they weren't the quickest, however looking across the course to the fancied French and Italian crews, we had opened up on them as well. After such a good start the first half of the race was very tense. Approaching half way we maintained our lead of about a length, but now were in uncharted territory. Could we maintain this pace our would our early pace start to tell and the two crews racing neck and neck on the far side of the course start to claw us back.

It was clear that the second half of the race would be critical as we piled on the effort. Gradually the rythm seemed more fluid and we had the feeling that perhaps we could maintain the pace. In fact rather than being clawed back, we were moving away from the field again. The fourth quarter was a case of hanging on and praying for the finish. We only had to maintain the momentum to cross the line with clear water over the chasing pack.

The Pilgrims were delighted to achieve a result right at the start of the regatta.