I so enjoyed coaching the 5th form boys during the Lent and Summer terms. There seemed to be two groups from the start, those who wanted to trace and those who did not want to.
The Lent term was most definitely the hardest in that it was often quite difficult to get onto the water, especially when the temperature was close to zero degrees Celsius which resulted in a slippery landing stage. In addition to this, the crews had to battle against the driving wind and rain. There were far too many memorable moments when the crew was out on the water and the heavens opened. This was just about manageable when it was just rain, but when it hailed the boat was just not the nicest place to be. There we just a handful of boys who survived the winter and were keen and motivated. The result was the selection of the following to be in the Colts eight: Ben Mayhew (as stroke), Stefan Horner, Ben Stockley, Toby Johnson, Will Sibley, Jonathan Bell, Dan Burns, Barney Kirk and Tom Warner (as cox)
My lasting impression of the fine crew of eight boys that stuck it out through the adverse weather conditions was seeing them develop during the rowing camp at Nantes. It was during this time tha the crew began to work hard during their outings where technique was corrected and where they came together as a crew. Some invaluable lessons were learnt. The most important one was learning to dig deep when the going got tough. This was demonstrated in a regatta at the end of the training week where they managed to squeeze into the final by one second. This meant that they were about 9 seconds behind the top crew. The crew then pulled out all the stops in the final race as they managed to stay with this top crew down the whole of the course, narrowly missing out on victory in the last 20 meters of the race.
The Summer term was not the best as far as regattas go. There was the sprint regatta at Coate Water Park which was hampered by bitterly cold weather and a light drizzle which developed into torrential rain just as our boys rowed up to the start where they sat ready to row for just under an hour. These difficult conditions resulted in one of the crew member's seat coming off the runners so effectively they were racing with only seven people. Despite this, they managed to row the rest of the course and keep up with the other crews. It was because they had lost so much time at the start that they were not competitive at the finish.
The crew had better success at Birmingham regatta where in an excellent display of rowing they did a very good start that got the boat moving quickly through the water, and managed to hold off the other crew all the way down the course despite hitting a couple of buoys. Their finish was a strong one and it secured them a good victory of a couple of boat lengths.
The ultimate regatta of course is the National schools and the pressure was mounting as the biggest race of the season approached. We drove up the day before the race and had a very good outing and managed to see some crews rowing down the course. We woke the next morning to find that it was blowing a gale straight down the course. Our race on the Saturday was cancelled along with the majority of races on that day. It was a great pity to end the season on that note. I have no doubt that the boys who continue to row will develop into accomplished oarsmen as they were beginning to understand what it takes to make a good oarsman. Thanks for a great year boys.