Cracknell Excels at Head of River Fours 2005

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Olympic rowers compete alongside local clubs

This year's Head of the River Fours took place at a nice civilised hour (12:30pm) and the unpredictable November weather even decided to behave itself – definitely a plus point when some crews have to marshall for two or more hours before racing, although it did get noticeably chillier as the afternoon wore on.

The fairly good conditions lent themselves to a uneventful race. One crew managed to sink before the start (I’m not quite sure of the exact reason why but I doubt it was swamping) and had to borrow a boat from an early starting Tideway Scrubbers crew. There was some confusion with the TSS crew being allowed to deliver the boat back to their clubhouse at speed but happily it all got sorted out in the end and the second crew got to race. A couple of Thames crews also took each other out of the race when they collided and got tangled up near Putney.

In fact, where there were problems on the water that caused crews to lose time, they were undoubtedly rower or should I say "steerer" inflicted, indeed the line many crews took (and that includes quite a number of the so called “local” elite crews) was utterly rubbish, many taking a course which would have been overland if the tide was out – i.e. nowhere near the main channel where the stream is. The slug even overheard several of the marshalls commenting afterwards that on average they felt the coxless crews had steered better lines than the coxed ones (?!?).

Those individuals, who did know exactly where to be found themselves, in several cases, to have a clear line in the stream - happily bypassing all the other crews battling it out for a place in the slow water.

The race saw plenty of big boys and girls come out to play. Leander managed to maintain their head position despite 2nd placed TSS biting at their heels. While Molesey’s quad of Hodgy, Biff, Monkey and Ockey, picked up third place and the S14X pennant.

Isis, with Colin Smith steering three large North American Internationals, romped home in 5th place to a win in Elite 4-, the Cambridge E4- coming in 2.3 seconds behind.

Thames cleaned up in several of the women’s events despite have a few late crew substitutions. Their WE4- was miles ahead of their nearest competition and the TRC WS2 quad managed a faster time than Leander’s winning WE4X. The winning Leander quad was their lightweights - the heavyweights’ speed suffering from losing Rebecca Romero and Anna Bebington to illness.

One big boy who definitely isn’t as bulky as he used to be, James Cracknell, picked up a win as a sub in the Leander Elite Coxed four. I can’t say he looked particularly comfortable in the boat, but then again 4 ¼ miles is considerably shorter than the 3000 he’s got to do in a scratch double at the end of the month.

For mug shots of the winners, check out the HOR4s website, where you’ll also find a full set of results. www.hor4s.org.uk/2005winners.htm

Christopher O'Shea

 

November 14, 2005