Last Saturday, local crews gathered for the mini-head on the Lagan. The course ran from the Odyssey to Queen’s Boat House and included crews from BRC, BBC, Methodist College, Lady Victoria, Bann, Portadown, Coleraine Inst, Belfast Inst and City of Derry Boat Clubs.
Queen’s men put out seven crews in total, two coxless fours, two coxed fours, two pairs and a novice eight.
The coxless four steered by Howell, finished third overall beating BRC S4- by over 11 seconds. The coxless four steered by Devaney held their own over the coxed (Tubman), despite it being Devaney’s first time steering. The novice eight put in a strong and gutsy perfomance for their first race and looked impressive for only a few weeks rowing. This crew certainly has potential once they become more technically proficient. Last years intermediate pair of Meek and Backus held a 23 second margain over the newly formed novice pair of Black and Hannon. This should set up an interesting rivalry for future racing.
Meanwhile the ladies had six crews out. The three eights (including two fresher eights), two pairs and single all put in pleasing performances. The I8+ (Thompson) finished 10th overall and were the fastest womens crew beating the BRC WI8+ crew by nearly 1min30sec. Heather Campbell in the senior single scull was the fastest of three. Both I2- finished close together with Hillyard and Paterson both steering pairs for the first time in a head race. Finally the two novice eights (coxed by Assarpour and Morrison) performed well after only one month of training, we look forward to see them continuing to improve over the coming season. All in all a great days racing was had, with everyone getting the first race of the year under the belt. This will surely provide the benchmark for the crews to smash come Lagan Head.Results can be found here