Reading Town Regatta

A welcome return for GMS to the Reading Blue Coat stretch of river happened over the weekend. The event organisers had added 300m to make it a total of 800m, three-a-breast on a stretch of river that is not very wide.

Steering is greatly important, which proved evident when the steering of the GMS crew went completely slack during the Junior Under 15 Coxed Quad (J15 4+) race. The crew, unfortunately, veered straight into the warm-up lane and collided with a Radley crew.

Radley displayed the great friendship of the rowing community and loaned GMS a boat to replace the damaged one. While it was a slightly older boat it did not stop the Junior Under 16 Coxed Four (J16 4+) of Billy Davidson, Leo Chapman, Lucas Wolgers-Gray, Adam Thorkildsen and Monty Todd from storming to victory against Bryanston.

There was further success in the Junior Women’s Under 16 Coxed Quad (WJ16 4x), (which actually contained two Year 10s (J15’s). They won against Shiplake Vikings. A first-ever regatta win for Natalie Quinn and Jess Rhodes, accompanied by Elise Whyte and Sophie Wharfe.

As a result of the success of Henley Royal Regatta (HRR), many foreign crews attend this event to gain some experience of tight match racing. Abi Forgeine, Sophie Wharfe, Amelia Eldridge, Poppy Spence and Charlotte Greening all gained experience from some fantastic racing against crews from Australia, all of whom were preparing for next week’s regatta.

GMS had many small boats racing, which is mainly about gaining experience in what is a high-pressure situation of managing themselves without the support of several crew mates. Our strongest result in the small boats came from Kayla Shillito and Bea Spence winning the Women’s Junior Under 14 Coxed Double Sculls (WJ14 2x).

Finishing up with some big boats and some close racing. Our Junior Under 14 Coxed Quad (J14 4x+) raced in a highly competitive final against Henley and Marlow, 6ft separated 1st to 3rd. The GMS crew narrowly came out in second here.

The Women’s Junior Under 15 Coxed Octuple (WJ158x+), which was 50% Year 9 raced Henley Rowing Club and lost narrowly by a canvas, in what was one of the great races of the day.

Finally, the Junior Under 14 Coxed Octuple (J14 8x+) won emphatically against Westminster and Reading Blue Coat on their home water. Due to DofE and illness, we had to pull a Year 8 at the last minute, this is a highly stressful situation and the maturity of the support from the Year 9’s was on show. Huge congratulations to the crew of Tom Wharfe, Ernie Stevens, Ben Symon, Henry Froome, Sam Gale, Euan Speare, Archie Gentry, Wilbur Morganti and Robin Rees-Davies (Year 8).

Fantastic competition for all involved and well done to all.