Although there had been a massive clear out from this age group after the successful J14 year, as has been shown before, those that remain can prove to be the more keen. It was apparent early on that this was once more to be the case, and the small and enthusiastic remnant backed up their determination with a welcome attentiveness to learning the technical skills necessary for channelling their natural eagerness and physique to propelling the boat as fast as possible. A regular VIII and sporadic IV/sculling group of spare men soon began a slow but steadily improving assault on the problems of personal and crew coordination throughout the term: results in terms of positions in the various Head races were perhaps undistinguished when one reflected on the excellent technical progress made, but the crew's showing in the Tideway Head, a long haul to test anyone's technique under stress, encouraged earlier speculation that this could turn out to be a distinctly better than usual J16 VIII.

The invaluable work done with the 1st VIII from time to time during term was continued in France at Macon and Amiens: to go fast you need to row well as well as hard. The crew's success at Amiens, winning their own Cadet Class and coming in most respectably overall, was ample justification for the policy – not running before you can walk -of the previous months. As a holiday too the combination of rowing with new horizons and experiences was well worth while...

Perhaps over-emphasis on preservation of technical form meant that by Avon County we were less advanced than most of our competitors but might so easily even so have won our class but for not being quite awake enough to the demands of short sprints rather than the steady almost sedate plods of long distance races: there was plenty to go for to achieve real pace and racing qualities when the crew returned to DRJ's leadership which had served them so well in the J15 year, the basis after all of what we had been able to do this year, both in terms of enthusiasm and adaptability.

Unfortunately, for the first time since January the crew suffered set-backs: with two of the crew out with quite seriously incapacitating injuries for a good deal of this period and subsequently under PGB's session of coaching, little work was possible on the water. The crew had to withdraw from Wimbleball and it was only with careful nursing that the crew managed to go to Nottingham for the National Schools' event. In the final, it could be said that Pangbourne who led us for practically the whole way by some half a length or so, lost a race they should have won: the obverse view is that our crew's training, and their holding on to what they had learned, taught not only Pangbourne but any others, who had time to watch and heed, the lesson that if you want to go faster you must row better as well as harder: with a couple of hundred metres to go Pangbourne 'went for home', became short and scrappy and lost cohesion: we kept one of Steve Fairbairn's many oft-repeated dicta in mind – 'keep quite cool calm and collected' – and maintained length and cohesion while throwing in every last ounce of strength and rowed past with perhaps only one stroke to go. Pangbourne were most generous in defeat and acknowledged that had the race been longer we would then have rowed right away.

A brilliant race to remember, and indeed to have rowed, but it was clear that the crew would need to find extra pace for the rigours of A Class events to come. PGB's problems continued with crew injury, accentuated by the half term break and the perhaps inevitable physical and more significantly mental slump after Nottingham: the crew was pretty dreary at Tewkesbury but started to pull themselves together by Reading Town. Although somewhat better physically and much more mentally cheerful they never really got going again at the brisker pace and higher rates of striking being aimed for: circumstances simply meant that the continuity of training and practice simply wasn't there to build on, the only disappointment of an otherwise happy and purposeful and in most ways successful Season, rounded off by a few days fun in a Scratch IV and tents at Llandaff: although once again too short of practice, this crew was good enough to be well in contention and could certainly have gone on to win at Senior 3 level later in the holidays had they chosen to plan to do so....With the change in term dates this could well be thought of more seriously in the future — the Regatta Season goes on for the rest of the (non-school) Clubs until the end of August: it seems a pity that after so many months of training we don't consider going on for a little longer with more of our crews other than the first VIII on occasion.