Having been practising since 1989, the time had come to put ourselves to the test. Henley Veterans Regatta no less, and the prospect of six 1000m races over two days in vet B (36-42 yrs) and vet C (43-49 yrs) Men’s Double Sculls, in our nostalgically-named boat, “MBC395”.
First round Friday races proved no problem, except that City of Sheffield paid us the compliment of scratching while we were attached to the stakeboat in torrential rain having hung around for 3½ hours since our lunchtime race. Presumably they expected to lose, so why get soaked as well?
Up at 0530 the following morning with the usual pre-race nausea, and an uncanny re-run of last year. We had our two semi-final races on Saturday morning against exactly the same crews as 2007, Sons of the Thames and Warwick, and dealt with them in similar fashion. Finals were now set up against Auriol Kensington in vet B, and Ardingly in vet C.
We have been the Nemesis of AK’s Frank Raschke over the past 4 years at both senior and veteran level, and this year he was teamed up with his strongest youngest partner yet to squeak in above the B age limit. It worked, and in the vet B final they were too strong for us, winning in possibly the fastest time in the world.
However there was a happy ending, unfortunately not massage parlour-style, but nearly as good with the vet C final proving more straightforward.
Significant statistics:
Max rate during starts: 47
No. visits to same tree during warm-up pieces: 4
No. times asked to pose for photos due to being very famous: 0
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