Following a successful weekend’s rowing which saw our novice women claiming a victory, Paul Townshend, Trinity Hall’s Boathouse Manager and Rowing Coach, spoke to us about the crews’ strong performances.
The competition on Saturday was a head race, where boats race a set course one-by-one and are timed. The races on Sunday were a novice sprint race with crews racing side-by-side (and, in many cases, in fancy dress).
“On Saturday, five senior boats came out of hibernation for their first race of the term at the Cantabs Winter Head. In the morning, the women’s first boat (W1)
Novice Men, Emma Sprints 2021
raced strongly to place 9th of the First Boats while W2 put in a great performance to sit an excellent 6th at the end of racing.
“In the afternoon, the three men’s boats all raced well with M1 placing a creditworthy 13th, M2 a wonderful 6th place in the M2 category while M3 rowed a fine race to finish 4th in their event.
“These are extremely positive results from squads especially when one considers the crews are largely made up with rowers who ‘noviced’ last year and had barely ever raced for longer than three minutes! Great progress has clearly been made so far this year.”
“Perhaps inspired by an excellent day of racing from the senior crews the previous day, our novices embarked on their first ever race at the Emma Sprints regatta which proved to be a roaring success beginning with our novice women’s second boat (NW2) defeating Lady Margaret in their first race before rowing well against a well drilled Churchill crew.
“Next were the novice men who were the victims of an unfortunate (not their fault!) start in their first race against Clare before bouncing back in the best way possible by defeating Robinson NM1 in their second race.
“However, the spoils of the day are reserved for NW1 who defeated Lady Margaret NW1, Christs NW1,Trinity NW1 and Wolfson to claim the title of Emma Sprints Winners 2021. NW1 certainly enjoyed one of their prizes for winning their event – free entry into the Emmanuel Cocktails party.
“Bearing in mind, a mere six weeks ago none of these rowers had picked up an oar before, the results are extremely encouraging and we cannot wait to see how all of our novices progress over the coming weeks, months and years. What a super weekend for all – Row Hall!”
Featured image shows the Novice Women’s First Boat victorious!
Note on terminology: M1 = men’s first boat, M2 = men’s second boat etc. NW1 = Novice women’s first boat, etc.
