Hammersmith Head

With the Schools’ Head just two weeks away, the racing at Hammersmith Head on Saturday provided an excellent opportunity to assess some of the early season form. 

The senior boys are racing in fours and quads this year and the four of Barnaby Singfield, William de St Croix, Thibby Mulot, Alexander Gowans and cox Oliver Meredith put in the performance that was expected and hoped for, completing the race as comfortable winners, posting a good time and a margin of 31 seconds over their closest rivals. The senior boys’ quad of Arun Grewal, Giacomo Tafi, Felix Abel and Cosmo del Mar have been training well in recent weeks and, though being a crew with half the oarsmen being Fifth Formers racing in a full U18 age-group A race, they put in a good performance and finished 11th, gained experience and can build on their result over the course of the season.

The J16s, WJ16s and J15s were all racing in eights at Hammersmith and can be pleased with their performances overall. The J16s managed a very respectable fifth place and now find themselves in the satisfying position of seeing a path to a fruitful season with the right application in training. The WJ16s were actually an amalgamated boat of WJ15s and 16s, with this also being the first outing on the Tideway for many of them. In spite of the potential challenges, the girls can be pleased with their efforts and their fourth place, before they return to their usual configurations for the Reading Head this weekend. The J15s were perhaps in need of some confidence to match the raw potential of the crew and, with an eighth place finish from a field of twenty-seven, the opportunity for development is clear to see provided a good work ethic in training continues to be applied.

All in all, a good weekend for the Boat Club, and with the challenges of the Schools’ Head looming larger on the horizon, there is much to feel brightly about.