Nottingham Head of the Trent

To kick off the competitions for 2019 the club had its first chance in a number of years to race on home turf again at Head of the Trent. Recently this event has clashed with BUCS Head and crews have been unable to challenge on home water as well as away in Newcastle. And what a year to return for the event, there wasn’t much room to complain about conditions with the weather that this weekend greeted the squad with.

Head of the Trent presented the novices with their first opportunity to race since joining the club in October, and they’ve set a tone to continue for the season. Under the attentive and engaging coaching, both squads have progressed incredibly well over those months. The novice men’s eight put in a strong row to come up with a second place finish behind Leeds, while the women weren’t to be outdone, and stormed to win their category with some tidy racing over a much longer course than next week’s at BUCS.

With the past few months for both senior squads spotted with injury and illness, this weekend was an opportunity to check how the speed was holding, and hopefully progressing since the last races. It was positive to see that the boat moving ability hasn’t been impacted heavily by this time. The crews put together solid displays of rowing on local water, and have another week to further tune up before BUCS Head. This set of results over multiple boat categories and disciplines shows the increasing depth and skill of the squads as a whole.

From much of the senior squad it was a reflection of the effort from the novices. A dominant performance and display by the senior women’s coxless four, mature for a crew of first years, picked up not just a win but a respectable placing among the rest of the division. From the men’s entries, crews collected the top three times for their division  in the quad and fours, also placing high in the overall times, beaten only by a number of 8’s from the first division.