It may not be widely known that the Third Forms make a start with Hockey and Rowing in their first term — in the first half they try out both sports once a week and in the second half opt for one or the other before making their choices for the rest of the year. This undoubtedly promotes more rapid progress in the Easter Term as well as meaning that fewer mistaken options are made.

Certainly this season saw quite early selection of provisional A and B crews and both were able to present reasonable showings at the Head Races; the A crew in particular not only proved themselves to be amongst the fastest in the Schools' Head but also to be developing a good crew spirit, eager to race and to learn from the experience when back on home waters, ready to improve and not be satisfied with being 'not to bad'.

This promise continued into the Regatta Season, and, while under JMB's guidance, they won The J14 class overall at Avon County against some top class opposition, won again at Wimbleball and were sixth in the A event at National Schools at Nottingham.

'Shearwater Races' became Bristol Docks Sprints (there was no water at Longleat while the lake dam was being repaired) and once again we were able to beat all the other crews, though I owned to secretly hoping the crew might be beaten by perhaps just one other crew as there had been some evidence of complacency creeping into our training, even though we had had to take second place to Shrewsbury at Tewksbury. At Reading Town and, after a few days camping at the end of the first week of the Summer Holidays, at Bedford, we had to be content with being runners up to King's of Canterbury and Chester respectively, both of whom had beaten us at Nottingham — if we were generous, perhaps the margins were a little closer, so although disappointed not to be able to turn the tables, we were able to finish the season knowing that this group had the ability to be well up with the best in the country in the coming seasons — but its tough at the top, as this year's very promising J15 crew found. Similar hard work and dedication are needed to even approach the high standards of A event competition.

It will be interesting too to see who of the J14B crew will emerge as A crew members; the crew as a whole lacked horse-power to seriously challenge at public regattas (albeit often against A crews, expectedly too good). They performed respectably and showed considerable promise technically, and individually several seemed quite able enough to have been unlucky not to have been in the A crew. Row on 1990. Our thanks to DMM, AJG and the 1st VIII for their coaching and support throughout the Season.