Month: July 2024

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Bringing home medals from a blustery Scottish Championships

The Scottish Rowing Championships were held at Strathclyde Park on the 8th and 9th of June with all the rowing clubs in Scotland fielding crews aiming to become Scottish Champions.  Inverness Rowing Club (IRC) travelled down with a strong contingent of junior, senior and masters rowers forming a selection of crews and making use of some of the boats recently purchased as part of the club redevelopment which has the aim of expanding the northernmost flat water rowing community.  Attending Scottish Rowing’s showpiece regatta certainly ranks as one of the big highlights of the Scottish Rowing Calendar, with the opportunity to race against, and watch, the best rowers in Scotland.
Tough conditions as crews battle up through the waves towards the start
Saturday provided some character building conditions with a strong tail wind down the 2km course whipping up significant chop in the second half, and proving a tough challenge to even get to the start (having to row up into the wind and waves).  Nonetheless it was a strong start for IRC, taking the Masters C-E 2- title with an IRC/St Andrew BC composite crew (A. Dobson & S. Andrews).  This success was quickly followed up by a win in the J14 2x from S. Hammock & R. Roxburgh.  Conditions worsened through the day and despite no further wins for Inverness a huge amount of valuable experience was gained: rowing in such conditions is extremely challenging with even very talented crews struggling at times.
The winning J14 2x
Sunday dawned brighter and the forecast was for dropping winds as the day went on.  Strong performances were seen from Inverness crews throughout the day, with some success in the B finals (Nov 2x A. Hopkins & T. Latham, and WNovice 4x+ L. Sproull, N. Chasheva, J. Bromham, L. Ronald & J. McManus [cox]) but it was the turn of the singles to shine, featuring in some extremely tight and hard fought finals.  The Novice 1x was up first with S. Andrews taking silver, only losing out by 0.76 seconds. S. Roxburgh then took a strong bronze in the J16 1x, racing in a composite field including J18 and Open category rowers, a number of whom he beat.  One of the most exciting races of the day featured Inverness sculler S. Hammock who was edged out of 2nd place by just 0.05 seconds and was only 0.69 seconds away from first in a race in which the lead was constantly changing.  A brilliant race to be involved in and to watch.
The ladies 4x+ enjoying the calm waters down at the start
The focus of Inverness rowers will shortly be turning to The Inverness Head, held over our own 4.5km course on the Caledonian Canal in November, with crews forming and starting to build in the training sessions.  Inverness Rowing Club is always looking to attract new or returning rowers.  If interested in rowing more information can be found here: https://invernessrowing.uk/join/ 
The winning Mas 2- composite crew


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Catching up on a busy summer so far…..

Junior Inter Regional Regatta – Nottingham 20th April

This is the first year that Scotland were invited to attend the Junior Inter Regional Regatta and 2 Inverness athletes were selected for the squad, following their excellent results at the Inverness Head in March.  Both did extremely well in what was a new experience for them with Sam Roxburgh finishing in 12th in the J16 single and Shay Hammock taking bronze in the J15 1x A Final (2nd boats), just missing out on silver  one 100th of a second.

Beach Sprints GB Trials & English Beach Sprint Championships – Bournemouth 27-28th April

Heather Gordon has been taking to the choppier waters of the beach sprint world, competing at a number of sprint regattas that have been held throughout the UK.  Most notably she placed fourth in the GB trials that were held in Bournemouth and followed that up with a third place in the English Beach Sprint Championships that were held the following day.

Scottish Spring Regatta 27-28th April

A large Inverness contingent headed south for what was the first multi-lane regatta of the season for many of them.  The weather smiled and the water was a lot less challenging that we have come to expect at Strathclyde Park.

Great performances on the Saturday saw Inverness take home silver in the J14 1x (Shay Hammock), narrowly squeezed out of the gold position, gold and bronze in the Novice 1x (Sam Roxburgh and Victor Atkinson) and a strong 4th in a hard fought final of the WJ15 4x with Hannah McManus taking a seat in a composite crew with members of Stirling RC.

Our successful Saturday scullers

Sunday was busy for both the juniors and the seniors who joined in the fun.  Lots of experience was gained throughout the club with a number of first time races at a multi-lane regatta and those that competed in singles over 1000m on the Saturday stepping up to the 2000m course on the Sunday.  Notably Sam Roxburgh came away with a bronze in the J16 1x.  It was the turn of the J14 doubles next, and somewhat mixed fortunes with Felix Latham and Wilbur Grant unfortunately capsizing after tangling with a buoy (although dealing with the situation admirably) and Robin Roxburgh and Shay Hammock storming through their heat and final to take a convincing gold.  The two crews then combined to take a well earned silver in the J14 4x+ with Hannah McManus coxing.

For many of the seniors competing it was the first time racing in a side by side regatta and although no medals were to be making their way back up the road with them, lots of experience was gained which will stand them in good stead for upcoming events.  A special mention must also go to the junior, Jessica Douglas, who traveled all the way down just to cox the senior crews.  Now everyone is looking forward to the rest of the regatta season.