A select band of rowers headed out east for day two of Aberdeen’s North East Regatta, with our chosen races all landing on the Sunday. This was a new regatta to us all, but not dissimilar to the Aberdeen sprints: just 300 m longer. That 300 m however, seemed to turn the straight line course into something far harder to follow with the bank moving away and towards you, bridge piers appearing where you hoped that they wouldn’t, and a finish line at an unexpected but welcome angle.
Arriving to a lovely sunny day the R2 4+ was first on the water in a straight final, taking on ASRA schoolkids…. always a tough opponent being young, fit and with boundless energy. But with Ailsa on the rudder strings it was Inverness that stole a march off the start moving out to a couple of seats. Perhaps taken by surprise by our position, or perhaps paying for our rapid start we started to lose form as we came through the bridges. The home support, vocal from the boathouses, spurred our opposition on and they crept up on us with every stroke as the line approached. Them putting on a push, or our inefficiency dragging us back? Lungs bursting. Legs screaming. Then whistles. We felt we had let it go. Competed well. The debrief continued on the bank. A solid row. Something to build on. It was R2. But bow piped up: were we sure we had lost? Putting the strangely phrased question to the umpire: ‘just checking, did we not lose?’ Indeed, we had not lost!! A great start to the day.
Mary was next into the fray in her masters single. This time unfortunately the bridge did come into play but Mary put in a strong row nonetheless in what was a very strong competition. This pushed the bridge even further into my consideration as I rowed up in the single for my race in the R2 1x. Having not been out in the single as much as I would have needed, confidence was not high. The pause between attention and go had me dragged back to ¼ slide by the stream for the start and things didn’t improve much from there. Having gotten up to a decent race pace, nagging doubts had me looking round expecting to see a wall of concrete looming, only to find I had veered off the other direction: lost at sea. All academic in the end as at least I lost to the eventual, and speedy winner of the category.
Tim and Adrian had enough in them to have Inverness finish on a high, putting in a really strong performance to take the R2 2- in a straight final again against ASRA. The bridge again looked like it would come into play, but they slid by, and then the far bank, but the line came first (see video above). Two from two for these two – great day. Taking these victories from ASRA probably helped ABC become overall champions in the regatta for the first time in several years. All that remained was to find an open chippy on the way back, which was accomplished also.
Next up, the Scottish Championships.