Month: November 2023

As now seems traditional the winds dropped and the sun began to shine, lighting the burnt autumn colours that line the Caledonian Canal.  It could only mean that it was time for the Inverness Fours and Small Boats Head once more, this edition sponsored by Caley Marina.  With six hundred and fifteen entries the waters were only going to stay calm for so long!

As always it is fantastic to see some truly quick crews making the 4500m course fly by.  The fastest crew of the weekend was the University of St Andrews BC R1 Quad stroked by Aidan Graham making it down the course in a time of 14 minutes 48.55 seconds (that’s holding a split of 1:29 for the whole course!) and the fastest women’s crew was also from the University of St Andrews BC with their R1 Quad stroked by Lizzy Adlam in a time of 16 minutes 12.89 seconds.  The overall winner of the Head of the Caledonian Canal 2023 was St Andrew BC, breaking the strangle hold that the University of Edinburgh have had on this award for a number of years.

It was hugely unfortunate that when Sunday came dawn never really appeared on the canal due to dense fog which persistently sat in the Inverness basin while the surrounding hills basked in the sun under clear blue skies.  The water remained flat calm and provided a beautiful row for those that could head on out after the racing was unfortunately called off for the day.

Inverness was well represented throughout the races which did go ahead on the Saturday.  A notable mention goes to the Novice 4+ stroked by Sam Roxburgh for making 2^nd in their event despite being relatively new to sweep rowing.  There were wins for Inverness in the J14 singles, with Shay Hammock coming home 45 seconds ahead of his nearest competitor, and the reunited composite pair of Conor Burgess (Chesterton Rowing Club) and Steven Andrews who took first place in the Masters 2- despite having a 2 year gap since their last outing.

Thanks to Stanislav Vohnik for documenting the weekend superbly – his photos can be found here.