Crew: Bow Paris Hearn, 2 Pete Riera 3 Will Quayle Str Jon Short Cox Sarah Springett
Despite not getting to race at Henley Royal Regatta, this was nevertheless an extremely successful season for the Senior Boys squad. Seven head-race victories were followed by thirteen regatta race wins leading to six finals and four trophies, including a bronze medal at National Schools. In addition, two finals were lost by 3 feet and four other races lost to the eventual winners. Indeed the boys became so used to winning things, that they found it difficult to cope with losing later on in the season!
Some excellent seat racing at the Nantes Easter training camp was used to select the crew. It also provided some additional useful information, such as the natural stroking ability of Jon Short and Piers Boileau-Goad and the different strengths of each of the two coxes, Tom Bennett and Sarah Springett. Sarah‘s great organisation and steering skills in the end promoted her above Tom‘s natural motivational abilities. Both showed very good progress during the year.
Though normally racing a 1st IV this year rather than an eight, it is ironic that we won more trophies in the eight this season year than we had done racing as a 1st VIII all last year! Indeed at various times the question was asked to whether we should really be going for an eight instead, but once you remove from the equation one fit, powerful, but vastly over-age(!) Yu-Kong Lee, we could not have performed in this boat type, to the same level as the four. It was a real shame also that still two weeks before the start of the summer half-term, the 2nd IV fell apart. With two individuals unable to row at National Schools plus increasing examination pressures, any focus as a crew was irretrievably lost. This was particularly unfortunate as most of the crew were desperate to carry on and the incredible devotion to the task by Yu Kong, Nick Sanders and Yu Kei Lee, despite not quite making the top crew, was superb. Unfortunately, every year it seems however hard you try to keep everyone involved, someone always ends up losing out.
With the co-operation of Avon County RC, the 1st IV trained at Saltford for basically the whole of the summer term. While this allowed some excellent training on a longer and wider stretch it unfortunately meant that the younger crews hardly ever saw the top boat on the water. Music was a vital component of these frequent trips to Saltford however and all the crew were skilled masters of fine-tuning the Mercedes aged sounds-system. When all else failed, Pete Riera‘s compilation cassette tapes came to the rescue! Other memorable moments included my chance most Tuesdays to cox the boat. It's not often that one has the opportunity on a summer‘s afternoon to see a family of huge carp swimming lazily around, or float past a red-eared terrapin sun-bathing on a log! Although the rowing highlight has to be National Schools Regatta, where after winning our heat, the crew went on to win a superb bronze medal in the final (only just missing out on the silver in the process!) the crew nevertheless continued to progress right through to the end of the season.
They were undoubtedly inspired by coaching sessions from two current international oarsmen, local Ali Brown and Old Monktonian Alex Partridge. These sessions definitely improved the attack and drive during the early part of the race, whereas before the crew had shown a tendency to hold back somewhat.
The first half of the Henley Qualifier was a superb example of quality rowing and it was just unfortunate that the Britannia Challenge Cup had a record entry this year, including some of the best senior fours in this country, Ireland and the USA! This was backed up in the final race of the season at Ironbridge Regatta, where we lost by a few feet to the crew that went on to win the Senior 2 final comfortably.
As friends and as a crew, they formed extremely close bonds and with such a close-knit group, it was amazing that there were only very few occasions where friction between individuals was evident during either training or in racing. All trained exceptionally hard and had absolute trust in each others abilities. They also worked very hard academically as well and congratulations to Pete, Jon, Paris and Will on gaining nine A-grades and four B-grades at A and AS level between them! They, plus Sarah (3 A's at A-level and 4 A's at AS) have been a real pleasure to coach throughout and I will genuinely miss the real camaraderie that we had together.