Wallingford Head of the River 2008: “There’s a wiggly bit at the start. And then there’s a tree. It kind of sticks out a bit”. Josh Yerrell’s strategic race course analysis for the Wallingford Head gave Imperial the upperhand from the offset. With the hard slog of twice daily training standing the crews in good stead Yerrell ensured suspicious vegetation would not be the undoing of ICBC crews. 40 club members raced the 4.8 km upstream from Moulsford Railway Bridge to the Oxford University Boat Club. There were eight boats entered in total from IC with wins from both the men’s and women’s squads in freezing weather conditions.
The racing convoy left ICBC at 5:45am and trekked out into the wilderness that is Wallingford, just three miles south of the Arctic Circle. Outside the protective layer of smog that covers the City of London temperatures drastically plummeted and signs of life were scarce. The driving rain rapidly turned into driving sleet and the crews quickly rigged the boats under the protective arches of Wallingford Bridge.
The top result of the day went to the men’s coxed four of Adam Seward, Richard Winchester, Dan Cadoux-Hudson and Adam Freeman-Posh. Cox Henry Fieldman led the crew to a winning time of 17:51.72 in the S24+ event. Their time was not far behind the Elite 4- winning time, which is a very encouraging result. Stroke Adam Seward kept things in perspective despite his fellow crewmate failing to appear for rigging: “Luckily Cadoux-Hudson's man was available to rig the boat most efficiently in his master's absence leaving us to concentrate on the business of preventing our testicles from permanently retreating from whence they came". The sub-human temperatures and continuous splash from the race had Cadoux-Hudson in dire straits, shivering in a near hypothermic state by the end of racing.
IC also took second place in this event with the crew of Cox Connie Pidoux, Simon Hislop, Dom Meyrick-Cole, John Dick and Henry Goodier coming 15 seconds later in a time of 18:06.44. Photographic evidence later revealed Hislop had raced wearing pogies (special rowing gloves). This public display of weakness is highly frowned upon by the club and spectators were in shock at the two-time Henley winner. Seat 2 John Dick was pleased with the race and made his way under Wallingford Bridge to escape the harsh weather. Dom Meyrick-Cole at seat 3 was unavailable for comment on the race as he was busy looking for Dick.
The women’s 4- (Hannah Rouse, Nicola Smith, Erica Thompson, Christina Matteotti) convincingly won their event (W.S2.4-) ahead of Henley RC in a time of 20:54.84. The coxed 4 (W.S2.4+) of Louise Hart, Ro Smith, Selina Graham and Clarice Chung had to make do with second place. The crew were going strong having overtaken a vets crew when a boat full of schoolboys suddenly stopped ahead. It was too late despite Cox Larissa Matley’s calls for easy and a crash was unavoidable. Precious time was lost but the crew clawed back securing the runner-up position in 20:54.35. Extra homework was issued to the offenders.
Three men’s coxless fours were entered in the S2.4- event. The crews finished 3rd (Tom Bell, Josh Yerrell, Kieran Docherty, Leo Carrington [18:31.78]), 4th (Danny Bellion, Iain Palmer, Adam Mayall, James Wedlake [18:36.37]) and 5th (Alex Gillies, Will Todd, John Davey, Brook McLaughlin [19:00.8]). All crews executed new training themes in a racing situation as requested by coaching staff. But, according to Head Coach Steve Trapmore, there is ‘still plenty of work to do’. Trappers delivered a passionate pre-race speech demanding crews to “row your <censored> off”. A lifestyle change for the women’s squad was suggested to fulfill the brief.
Gillies 4- suffered an early blow when seat 3 Will Todd, still devastated from Kingston results, discovered his former partner Ole Tietz was in Sheffield with another man. The continuous pining for Tietz caused built-up rage throughout the boat and eventually Stroke Alex Gillies snapped. In a fit of rage the entire steering shoe came off and the rest of the race was spent bouncing from one side of the bank to the other.
The men’s 8+ (Matt Lunt, Michael Zammit, Philip Gruenewald, Chris Pollock, Ben Anstiss, Rob Todd, Mark Snaith and Gauthier Byrne) was a development boat with many new faces and a couple of old ones returning to form. They were out gunned in the S3.8+ event that was impressively won by Oxford Brookes University in a time of 16:11.96 (over a minute ahead of the IC crew). Brookes showed good depth across the whole event wining nine events on their home water.
Despite the miserable cold and muddy conditions there were redeeming bacon sandwiches on offer. Coaches spent most of the day huddled around the BBQ thawing icy fingers with cups of hot coffee. The grassy field where the trailer had been parked on in the darkness of early morning later transpired to be a swamp. Unhitching truck and trailer was the only option, both of which needed manual pushing to dry land. After the post-race cool-down ICBC stood back as every other club suffered the same fate.
Next week is Sculler’s Head from Chiswick to Putney where George Whittaker will be defending his heavyweight title at 9am. 20 sculler’s will be waving the ICBC flag and all support is welcome.
By Christina Duffy