After the hottest day of the year on Tuesday, Wednesday at the Royal Regatta was a blazers-on affair, a drizzly grey morning giving way to stiff and blustery tail-cross winds whipping away the heat of the sunshine as the clouds vanished in the afternoon.
Brilliantly quick conditions (tailwind at the start, very little stream, breezy up the course) led to a battle of the records in the Wargrave women’s club eights. Three crews — Leander, Molesey A and Henley Women’s winners Thames A — beat the former Barrier record of 2:00 by two seconds, while Leander lowered the Fawley mark from 3:23 to 3:22, which Molesey A destroyed a few hours later, taking it down to 3:20. These times are starting to bear very good comparison with the international Remenham Challenge Cup (Barrier record 1:54, Fawley mark 3:11), and are now on a par with the highly competitive Island Challenge Cup for student W8+.
Records also went crashing in the men’s equivalent trophy, the Thames Challenge Cup. After London A showed off yesterday by equalling the Barrier and Fawley records, Thames A matched the former and De Hoop the latter during the morning, despite the Dutch club being warned persistently for poor steering. That wasn’t enough for London, who took advantage of an extra-windy afternoon to carve three more seconds off the Fawley record for the event, taking it to within one second of the Ladies’ Plate mark for elite men’s eights.
Having been absent from Tuesday due to the lack of student and elite events, Oxford Brookes turned up in force on the second day of racing to show everyone how they have weathered a storm of scandal and management difficulties since last autumn. Of their six crews in action, four won (Brookes B knocking out Brookes C in the Temple student eights), but not without some confusing racing. In the morning the Prince Albert lost to University of San Diego, the Americans outrating a Brookes M4+ which appeared unable to raise its rate higher than 34 for the second half of the race. Over-geared, perhaps?
They ended up losing by a mere two feet which could easily have been made up by a finish sprint, after a prolonged pause while the photofinish camera was checked. In the afternoon the Brookes A Temple crew put in a much more polished performance against Holy Cross USA. They cruised the entire second half at 34 which, though it appeared on the outside to make for a full race, was merely ticking along. That much became obvious when Brookes paddled off after the three cheers, barely breathing hard. The Island women’s eight B crew from Brookes won an heroic and tense race against Bath University by three quarters of a length, which sets them up to meet Nereus in the next round, while the selected A crew, who have yet to race, have Edinburgh, who beat the second Oxford women’s development crew.
The Prince Philip junior women’s eights event is tightening into a group of high flyers of similar speeds. Kinross Wolarol from Australia joined Henley Women’s winners Headington School in posting the quickest Barrier time of the day, but there is no obvious front-runner at this stage.
There was less heat exhaustion in the cooler conditions, but Newcastle’s Temple 6-seat Will Eddleston had to be helped out of their victorious eight at the finish of their Temple race against MIT, with the rescue team remarking “How on earth did he dislocate his shoulder?!” as they returned to their observation point after getting him to land. Supporters should be reassured that he looks fine and the comment was not a medical diagnosis.
In the Prince Albert student coxed fours Newcastle survived a Riverfront Recapture battle, passing their rivals before the Barrier and then leading narrowly the entire way, but without needing to sprint. Riverfront are four current first varsity members of Trinity College Hartford plus a previous student cox, but it appears to be against the rules that they can compete in the Prince Albert, the 2025 rules for which state that it’s open to “any crew of eligible members of a boat club of any university, college or secondary school”. Riverfront Recapture is a general community club with many non-student members, so it is intriguing that the TCH students were allowed to compete under its banner, even if it was the first time that the club has been represented at Henley Royal. In addition, the coxswain listed in the crew, Sawyer Macdonald, has just finished his third year at Clemson University, not Trinity.
Double Olympic champion James Cracknell has started a career as the head coach of Vesta rowing club in London, and brought an ambitiously big fleet to the regatta, comprising three men’s and three women’s club eights, two club men’s coxless fours and a sculler. Of those six qualified, one has yet to race, and of the other five, only the top Wyfolds four was racing on Wednesday. They lost to Sydney after tweaking the booms near the island at the start. Also in the Wyfolds are Club Vichy from France, a group of four master’s C rowers who recently won their age-group national championship and who have 40 national titles between them. They are through to the quarter-finals, having beaten a German club crew and then Minerva Bath.
The Australian threat lurking in the match between Hampton School and St Ignatius’ College in the Princess Elizabeth junior men’s eights dissolved into a walkover for the Hampton schoolboys. They bounded off the start with determination and walked away from a surprisingly pedestrian St Ignatius crew, the first time the Aussies have been beaten by any junior peers this season. With the St Edward’s eight demolishing Westminster — it looked as if it was close but Teddies were cruising the last third at 34 — and St Paul’s hounded closer than expected by King’s College School, there are several crews in the mix to be racing at the weekend.
Marin USA had to wait while a ‘course infrastructure’ issue was sorted out (which usually means a boom has come loose), and perhaps due to nerves caught a tiny crablet off the start, but recovered well and then took Reading Blue Coat to the cleaners. Radley and Bedford were significantly more confident than the rest of the pack, dropping to 24 and 27 respectively on their way to defeating Latymer Upper and King’s School Chester, a move only possible for those with many more gears ready to use.
Thursday sees the small boats (1x, 2x and 2-) get underway along with several elite events including the new and very welcome Bridge Challenge Cup for elite women’s eights. The club and junior eights get a rest and the junior quads continue.
