Gareth Brown reports on the ICBC Annual Novice Head...
As the snow fell around the boat house, ICBC’s new recruits prepared themselves for the 2nd Annual Imperial College Boat Club Novice Head of the River Race. The 2.5km head race between St Paul’s School boat house and Imperial College Towers was organised for a 3pm start on the fast flowing outgoing tide.
Jess Johnson, coxswain of ICBC A had failed to brief her crew in light of the freezing conditions, with fellow crew member Hugh Gledhill seen sporting only a lycra one-piece and a woolly hat as boating commenced. With crews boating from 3 different locations, inevitably one crew; Roehampton Men’s 8+, were late to boat, paddling to the start 10 minutes after the crews from Imperial, St Paul’s School, Kingston and KCL had set out. This was explained later as the crew boating from Barn Elms could not find a large enough shoe horn in order to fit their coxswain Will Todd, Henley winner 2007, into the boat.
Despite these setbacks racing got underway at 3:30 with the women’s 8s leading the field away on a choppy tideway. St Paul’s “Novice” J16 8+ sat the fastest time of the day in 7:19.5 but were later disqualified as their 8 was deemed “too fast” by chief umpire Trapmore. In light of this ICBC A took the Head of the River pennant in 7:45.4 followed by KCL and Kingston A, who had led the race over the 1st part of the course. The women’s pennant was taken by Roehampton University over Kingston in a time of 9:05.6.
The race was followed by a large ICBC contingent present at the ICU’s Sports Night to celebrate the victory.
Congratulations to all those taking part, full results can be found below.
Gareth Brown
St Pauls J16 M8+ 7:19.5
ICBC M8+ (A) 7:45.4
KCL M8+ 8:19.0
Kingston University M8+ (A) 8:21.9
Roehampton University M8+ 8:25.3
ICBC M8+ (B) 8:25.4
Kingston University M8+ (B) 8:46.2
Roehampton University W8+ 9:05.6
Kingston University W8+ 9:27.6