Bedford Regatta

On Saturday 11^th May GMSBC took eight crews to Bedford Regatta; there were five wins in this charming two-lane river regatta composed of quarter final, semi and final heats in most events.

It was an early start for the Year 10 Boys’ Quad who were at Bedford for 7:15 to race a Bedford School Quad, in their first round. The boys got off to a fast start and took an early lead, which was never challenged: this started our regatta well with a win.

Our Years 9 Girls’ Quad was going well until they caught a boat-stopping crab, which allowed their opponents to move ahead of them.

Next, was our Year 9 Boys’ Octo, in a delayed race against Shiplake College. The boys dominated from the beginning and won by a couple of lengths of open water to progress to the quarterfinals. They had a long wait for their next race, which was against Hampton School, (Gold Medallists from last week’s JSR). They raced well and were still very much in the race at halfway but the lack of practice recently on the water caught up with them and Hampton opened up to a couple of lengths lead.

The older girls had a WJ18 Quad and a WJ16 Four. Both were really good races and showed great grit narrowly losing to their opponents.

The older boys also had a Four and a Quad racing. The Four had an excellent first race against Abingdon School. Due to the staggered start it seemed they were behind throughout the race, but gradually they ate away at the stagger, so that on the line GMS were a canvass in front. They were expecting to race Eton in the second round but a strong Bedford Four beat Eton and lined up against our boys for the semis. It was another tight race, with little to choose between the crews until the very end when Bedford managed to squeeze the win by just over a length.

Our last crew in the regatta was the J18 Quad, who had a rather unfortunate semi-final where they experienced difficulties with the steering and clashed with their opponents then with the bank.

On the rerow, both crews got safely down the course with a win for GMS over Windsor Boys. The final at 7:15 pm was a little less eventful and the boys won a comfortable victory over Bedford Modern School to win the event.

It was a successful and sunny day on the river!