Rainy with a chance of crabbing: A tale of the Nottingham RC Coastal Mixed Quad
Nottingham Rowing Club made their mark at their first ever British Rowing Beach Sprint Championships – Lucy Holgate recounts their fateful race.
Undeterred by our lack of proximity to any coastline and absence of any beach sprint experience, four of Nottingham Rowing Club’s finest highest performance athletes keenly made the journey down to Studland Bay for the British Rowing Beach Sprint Championships.
The water was flatter than Holme Pierrepont on a good day
Preparation for our big beach debut involved watching a couple of ‘how to beach sprint’ YouTube videos in our hotel the night before. Race day arrived and we were raring to put our new found knowledge into action. With the last-minute venue change due to forecast stormy conditions, we were delighted to discover the water was flatter than Holme Pierrepont on a good day. The morning programme brought the Coastal Mixed Doubles time trials, where we honed our skills, instilling the belief that we were ready for our big moment in the event we came for – the Challenge Mixed Coxed Quad.
Credit: AllMarkOne
After six hours of soaking up the fantastic atmosphere and preparing tactics for our big race, the weather finally lived up to the forecast and conditions took a turn for the worse. Not even a Dryrobe could save us now. A tough first first round draw put us against our own Nottingham RC teammates Jerry Owen and Lara Brittain, but this star studded line up didn’t phase us; we knew it would ultimately be us against the waves.
This handbrake spun our boat back to the shore before we could take our first stroke
Attention, go. Our cox Oli Kemp leapt down the beach like a cheetah in a tailwind. Then disaster struck. Robin Kingston-Evans, our magnificent 3 seat, hopped in the boat only to discover his seat had fallen off. Sat behind him at two, I instinctively rushed forward to help. Then BAM. A mighty wave swallowed my blade and I caught a what can only be described as a gate mangling crab. Absolute whopper.
This handbrake spun our boat back to the shore before we could take our first stroke. Despite being pushed surprisingly far down the shore and not even venturing past the first slalom buoy we did technically get back to the beach before the other crew. I encouraged bow seat Eve Thomas to sprint to the finish buzzer before our opponents. But alas, the Welsh whippet Jerry Owen still beat us to it…
Our goals for the weekend were to have fun, complete all our races and get some epic AllMarkOne action shots… two out of three of these were achieved and we’re pretty chuffed with that.
Unfortunately for the wonderful event organisers and kind volunteers, we really enjoyed ourselves and already have next year’s event in our calendars. See you next time!
