Henley Royal Regatta


Photos 19 - 36 out of 88 | Back to Albums
In order to keep all the boats roughly the same weight, the cox from each crew is required to 'weigh in' before the race and if they fail to meet a minimum weight, then the boat is forced to carry additional weight. Of course there are little tricks in play by every club to try and beat this system somewhat. Tuyut for example has a nasty habit of becoming massively thirsty before each weigh-in and skols about 2 litres of water before hitting the scales. It was hilarious watching her stand in line for the scales with her legs crossed and a strained expression on her face. I've never seen anyone disappear to the dunny so fast as this once she was off the scale and approved! All this for a 2kg weight advantage. We love you Tuyut, and what you go through for us! In the end, we had to add around 5.5kg of sandbags to the boat for handi-capping. Not too bad! Funny thing is, Big Dave having a shit probably gets rid of 5kg alone. Well, we all do our part - there is no I in TEAM. The massive boat storage tent - the moment I walk in here for the first time I recall pleasant memories of Oktoberfest :)
Each year of the Regatta, there is a new metal badge for the Steward's enclosure. The badge is pinned onto your jacket or blazer and is basically your ticket into anywhere - one of these gets you into Stewards enclosure and the works. Naturally many people collect their badges over the years - each has the year and is a different colour. So they sell these memory boxes for you to store them and display things like badges and programmes. I hit the regatta shop like any good tourist would. Certainly if I qualify I will want some lovely souveniers to take home with me. I can tell you now that the HRR shop puts the merchandise tent at the SLSA Aussie Champs to shame! It has a marvellous range of apparel, giftware, photos and prints, and other rowing related stuff. Some of it is quite expensive, but it's still awesome! They even have their own ladies section where you can buy hats and other accessories for your day out. Little does Malfroy know - since I never told her - but had she come out to the regatta on the Friday or Saturday, I was going to get her a lovely hat to match her outfit. Alas, an afternoon at work was more important it seems, than a fabulous day out at one of Englands reknown society events. Missed out Malf! Next time maybe :)
As we head down the river to watcdh the 4- crew in action, we pass by the Stewards Enclosure. Now, he Henley Royal Regatta is a society event - a staple on the posh calendar each year along with Ascot, Wimbledon, The Boat Race (Oxbridge) and the Chelsea Flower Show. This photo reminds me of Ascot (doesl ook a little like a race track without all the deck chairs and gawdy blazers. It is the more exclusive area of the regatta which is extremely posh and hard to get into. Tickets are pretty much granted to members of the Steward and coaches, presidents of clubs etc. Otherwise you can buy them at a bit of a price through someone in the know. My general competitors badge it turned out, wouldn't even get me in here. They have the best view of the finish line and the last 300 metres of the race - so are closer to the action than any other area or enclosure along the river. I will get in here, no matter what it takes. Just to see what it's like more than anything... We get to about 500m from the finish line to watch the 4- crew in their qualifier race. Ours isn't for another couple of hours yet. It's lovely and pleasant dangling our feet into the water - this strech of the Thames is much cleaner than the 'turdway' back in London. The boys are looking really, really good at first. This photo shows the awesome form they are showing. Unfortunately the boys come-a-gutsa after Phil goes a little too hard too soon. An unbalanced power ratio soon sees the boat become very hard to steer and eventually they hit one of the booms, which unfortunately means it's pretty much game over as they come to a complete standstill. It's unfortunate since they looked like they were going really well at the start and US Matt reckons it was one of the best rows of his life. Shit happens, we all feel for the lads. Then we are up, and suddenly it dawns on me that the crew I'm about to stroke down the course is the only one left flying the PTRC flag for Henley 2009. Pressure mounts and I'm getting nervous. Jeez I hope we pull this off!
Soon enough it's the 8's turn to step up to qualify. I will say that I was still pretty nervous at the start line. The responsibility I had was pretty huge. In no uncertain terms, if I stuff up the start or fail to set a good rhythm, then we are stuffed six ways to Sunday and I will not be popular. None-the-less I am a veteran of 14 years of rowing. I am confident that I'm up for the challenge, and we have undoubtedly done plenty of training, so it's just a matter of sticking to the program, relaxing and getting into that rhythm. Adrenaline is flowing. The row is pretty good. It starts off OK, a little rocky but we get it together. Then about 800m from the end, we really hit our strides. The slight heaviness lifts as we are cheered on by our PTRC club members supporting us from the banks. We wind for the finish and it all comes together. When a boat is moving like we had it moving, its an amazing feeling! We are shattered at the end, especially the last 10 strokes are murder, and not long later I also realise how mentally exhausted I've become from the concentration. Now I've never been good with the kind of situations where you are waiting for your name to be called out. All I can think of is times like - for example - back in high school where we were unsuccessful at getting a wildcard entry in the Rock Eisteddfod. A feeling that leaves you gutted - so much hard work, feels like it's wasted and everything is now over. Well, when they start calling the names out, it's in alphabetical order. They are only reading out the successful clubs and 8 crews will be missing out. It's punnishing waiting for them to get down to your letter... come on 'P'. "Lea Rowing Club, London Rowing Club B, London Rowing Club C, Maidstone Invicta Rowing Club B, Mlesey Boat Club B, Monmouth Rowing Club..." Come ON hurry up please! There are so many names being read out and surely they are running out of places... "Mortlake Anglian & Alpha Boat Club, Putney Town Rowing Club..." As soon as the word Putney is out of the announcers mouth, the whole crew just erupts with joy! I can clearly recall the gutteral scream that I made, as the feeling sunk in that finally I had achieved something immense, that I will never ever forget and cherish for the rest of my life. The right to race in the world's most prestigious amatuer rowing regatta. Short of an International Championship or the Olympics, it doesn't get any better! I can honestly say that you couldn't wipe the smiles from our face for weeks! It really brought the crew together and everyone had an enormous sense of satisfaction. And even coach James was happy enough that he allowed us to have a couple of beers back at the club later. OK I swear that it was only a couple, but Paulie, you totally look wasted here!
Saturday morning after the qualifiers. And one of the traditions of the club is that when you qualify for Henley, the crew turns out to paint the blades. We want to look our best when representing the club! And the boaties back home know just how much I love a shiny new oar 😉 It's a great day to get a tan too. Summer is in full swing at the moment and the Aussie is out recharging his solar batteries! Wow, that's a long, long course! Well it's only 1 mile, 550 yards actually. But it looks a lot longer! Well, we qualified for certain, but the draw was not kind to us at all. We drew London Rowing Club's A crew - who pre-qualified - and were pretty much tipped to take out the entire event. As a 'low-performance' club relative to many of the crews at the regatta, we were pretty much stuffed and it would be a miracle to get through to the second round. None-the-less we race on Wednesday at 11am. Beforehand, everyone relaxes around the boat tent, like Tuyut here.
No matter what happens today, it's gonna be a good day. If we get through the heat and beat London as underdogs, that will just be unbelievable. If not (the likely situation, unfortunately) then we get on the piss. Oh. Yeah. Big Dave's blazer - well looked after. Coaches Andy and James wish us all the best, and before you know it we have launched and on our way down the 2km warmup lane heading towards the start line. Damn it's a beautiful day! This is the official photographer snapping us at the start line. Many of us are quite inexperienced at the whole side-by-side lane racing. One-on-one, it's quite personal and there's gonna be one winner and one loser. Simple really.
   
Photos 19 - 36 out of 88 | Back to Albums
Description: To win the Henley Royal Regatta is possibly the stuff that dreams are made of, up there with winning a Gold Medal in the Olympics. And you can imagine that even to be able to compete at such a prestigious event is such a great feat in itself. In 2009, I had the opportunity to be coached by one of the UK's double Olympic gold medal winning rowers, Andy Holmes. After a long, cold winter of technical rowing, and months of torturous ergo sessions to become more physically fit than I've ever been before in my life, I was promoted to the position of stroke of the Putney Town Rowing Club senior men's 8+ crew! Taking this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity by the balls, we marched on to the Henley qualifiers to fight for one of 32 positions in the Thames Cup event... and we did it!
Location: England

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