Woodbridge Regatta & DRC BBQ Sunday 8th June

As you should know by now, Sunday 8th June is the date of this year's Woodbridge Regatta.

The Grand Opening will take place at 13.45 outside Eversons (and our clubhouse, of course!), where the Mayor will be on hand to formally start things off.

There are a wide range of activities taking place on the day - please click here for a list, or I can email a pdf to you.

DRC will be holding a BBQ, so mark the date in your diary and encourage all your friends, families and colleagues to come along. Please get in touch with Will & Nicola if you will be able to help out as well.

Look forward to seeing you there!

City of Cambridge Sprints

Clio won her first pot of the season at the City of Cambridge Sprints on Sunday. Drawn against one of her local rivals and former doubles partnersfrom Rob Roy, it was all to play for in somewhat of a grudge match as they stood one apiece at the start of the regatta.

Drawn on the favoured inside of the short 400m "banana" along the front of the Cambridge boathouses, Clio was not out of the blocks too well against the more specialist Robs sprinter, on her home patch, but dogged determination kept our girl in touch.

With the volume of bank side noisereaching a deafening roar, Clio inched back, lined up for the last 100m and let loose her ever-improving power sprint, passing her opponent in the last few strokes to win by 3 feet.

The long day was capped off with a stylish paddle up the course to collect her pot, as the opposition for the final scratched.

All in all it was a great day's work, made all the more impressive by the fact that she had also competed in the Head to Head in the morning, consisting of back-to-back 2000m pieces down to the A14 bridge.

Congratulations, Clio!! And many thanks to Chris J. for this write-up.

Junior Team-EAST Selection for Clio

A rather belated note to say that, following her success in the regional trials, Clio will once again be representing the eastern region in the Junior Inter-Regional Regatta in Nottingham on April 19th. More information about the event can be found out on the website: http://www.jirr.org/index.html

Anyone who can't remember how well she did last year can also check out our blog archive!

Good luck, Clio! We're all looking forward to hearing how you get on...

DRC Makes a Splash in Cambridge

Cambridge Winter League

This was to be another weekend of windy conditions and off-putting weather forecasts, but fortunately the race went ahead as planned and lots of red t-shirts took to the water in singles, doubles and Raedwald. Ken and Chris started off with their races in the 1st division; Jane & I, the Gentleman's 4+, Clio, Em and Tim raced in the 2nd; Chris and Tim raced for a second time in the 3rd division, whilst John and Terry also went out in their trusty double; finally in division 4 Clare & Em and Ken & Nick battled against the pouring rain and wind in their doubles.

Once again club members put in an excellent effort and it was another really enjoyable day. Sadly the weather wasn't quite as good for photography as last time (and also I was the only one wielding a camera!), but I have a few more to put in the album soon. Full results can be seen at CRA online too.

Two results that deserve a mention right now, however, are wins for Clio in the jnr women's singles (is there any stopping her?!) and for Jane & I in the women's doubles. Hurray!! The boys really have some catching up to do now...

Cambridge Champs Junior Head

For the second year running, Clio (seen here showing off her medal from the NJIRC) represented the club at this special head race for juniors and came away with two prizes - one for her single and one for a composite double.

National Junior Indoor Rowing Championships

Clio took part in the NJIRC yesterday...and came home with a silver medal!!

This is an outstanding result - she hasn't yet told me what her time was, but let's just say I don't think I'll be challenging her to any 2k competitions in the near future (or ever, in fact).

Anyone interested in finding out more about the champs can click on the link above.

WELL DONE, CLIO!!

Norwich Head & Capsize Drill

Last weekend was another busy one for DRC...

Norwich Head, Feb 23rd - Clio bravely made the trip across the county boundary and up to Norwich to compete in both her single and a composite double, while Chris Jillings also flew the DRC flag in his single. Clio and her partner from Norwich did particularly well in their race, coming first in their category and second fastest in the whole division. Full results can be found on the Norwich website.

Capsize Drill, Feb 24th - David Hodgkinson organised an excellent session for us to all practice falling out of boats (I'll avoid too many jokes about his experience at that!) and he & Lewis Dann also gave us some basic CPR instruction. I certainly feel a lot more confident about the prospect of tipped out of a scull now (and it turns out that Oliver can knock out a pretty good drum roll when upside down in the water), but hopefully it'll be a while before any of us have to put our new-found skills to the test.

CWL - February 17th 2008

With car thermometers reading -7 as we headed to Cambridge, it could have been a pretty miserable day of getting cold and tired on the water. Luckily the sun soon started warming things up, though, and we could hardly have asked for better conditions.

Ken and Chris braved the 9am start in D1, while the rest of us decided that divisions 2, 3 and 4 were much more civilised. During the rest of the day we had a good turnout from the women (Clio, Clare, Em, Jane, Katherine & Anna) in doubles and singles; Tim battled up and down the river twice in his single, Terry and John teamed up in Reg, the Gentleman's 4+ put in a good effort (despite a little brush with the bank...or was it another boat?) and then kindly stepped aside for the mixed 4+ (Oliver, Simon, Jane & Anna) to take to the water.

At the time of writing, I don't know the results, but can confidently say that we all did really well!!

John Churcher deserves a special mention for rowing the course no less than 6 times (!) and many thanks go to Tim for organising the tow truck and safely transporting the boats to Cambridge and back.

Thanks also to Clare for taking most of these photos (more in the album, please follow right-hand link). As always, feel free to send me any more by email if you'd like me to add them.

Results can be found at CRA online - Well Done DRC!