Race Report - Exeter, 4th May 2008

The Runners and Riders

Premier Teams	Standard Teams	Ladies Teams
Henley Bristol Empire Dragons Kingston Royals Thames Taniwhas BA Hurricanes Typhoon Tigers Amathus Three River Serpents Thames Raging Dragons	Worcester Dragons Cool Runnings Secklow 100 Notts Anaconda Wraysbury Dragons Kinston Pretenders Notts Anaconda Powerhouse Pershore Pheonix	Sirens Secklow/Worcester Kingston Ladies

The Report

Exeter is our first race of the season having missed Liverpool due to the lack of paddlers.  The race season seems to have started early this year!

We are more or less the same team as last year but have an ex Cardiff Power Blades paddler Chris W,  who deserves a medal along with Ben Callghan and another newby Ben E for travel to Bristol twice a week for training.  We have Mike Duval and we have a new Helm, Matt and this is his first race and not surprisingly he is slightly nervous to say the least, we give him encouragement and await our first race.

There are more teams here this year and competition for points will be fierce.  Raging Dragons and Typhoon Tigers are there staking there place in the Premier League, after last years efforts they certainly deserve to be there.

Our first race in the 200m is against Raging Dragons and the hosts ExeCalibre so it’s by no means and easy race (we will learn that there are no easy races this season).  We go up to the start line a little concerned that thee is a moored boat in the racing line that ExeCalibre will be taking.  We await the start and we are off it’s a good start and we are clear the boat feels good then it gets heavy and there is an unfamiliar sound, it’s behind me and on the other side I keep paddling hard but we don’t make progress and eventually we get over the line.  I look round to see Raging Dragons sharing our boat and ExeCalibre gliding by.  We get out of the boat and the Raging Dragons helm immediately apologises for the collision, we check our crew and find that we have encountered a few bruises and nothing more serious, despite Ginette literally getting the Dragons head in her face!  Well that was a good race for our novice race helm!!

We anxiously await the result to find out where we finished, thinking that ExeCalibre may have taken the race.  We are awarded first place in a time of 55.48 Raging 57.37 and ExeCalibre 56.44.

The other races unfold and despite the collision our time is pretty good so we wait to see who we get in Round 2.  For our efforts we are in lane 2 against Taniwhas and the Bees.  A good start puts out in front and there we stay with the Taniwhas on our shoulder previously we would have been passed but we hold on determined to win.  We get through in a slower time of 56.21, Taniwhas 57.13 and the Bees 01:01:62.  That result get’s us into our first 200m finals and we are up against Typhoon Tigers and Amathus!!  We get a good start but are soon caught by Amathus who we keep pace with. Amathus win and we are placed 3rd in a time of 56.21, Typhoon 55.98 and Amathus 55.16.  Our friends at BA who we managed to avoid for once go to the Major final and take 3rd overall – they really are doing well I must admit!

No sooner have we finished with the 200’s we are straight into the 500m races where we face Thames Raging Dragons and Pershore Phoenix.  Again we start well and hold on but Raging get their revenge and pip us at the line!  Bristol 01:51:99, Raging 01:51:00 and Pershore 01:14:52.  Would we get through as the fastest loser, we await all the results, especially BA’s, we baited breath.  Our time is good enough to see us through to the cup competition and who do we get?  BA and Amathus!!  So much for a fast time but there are no easy races anymore.  We go up to the start line followed BA and there we sit whilst we wait for Amathus, and we wait and we wait!!  Eventually they arrive and the starter tells them to go straight to the line.  We are under starters orders and Amathus call a stop to preceding say there is debris in their lane we all relax and hear the starter tell Amathus to stay where they are and to let the launch retrieve it, Amathus move forward a boat length and retrieve a small piece of wood about the size of courgette!!  We settle and we are off we chase Amathus down the course and stay with them rather than concentrate on our own race.  Of course BA are in that race and it getting a habit that any race we are in with them results in them beating us!!  Amathus 01:52:78, BA 01:53:01 and Bristol 01:53:57.

We go through to the  tail race against Typhoon Tigers and Henley a repeat of last years Minor Final that we won.  Despite a good start we can’t hold off the Typhoon challenge and they take revenge.  Typhoon 01:53:97, Bristol 01:54:51 and Henley 01:55:13.  The frustration of not winning was taken out on the birthday boy Shaw who told us exactly how cold the water was!!!

We enviously watch BA take the Minor Final in a time of 01:55:24 – you can bet anything you like that had we been up against them, they would have beaten us no matter how fast we went!!

We finish 9th it wasn’t a brilliant day but there are encouraging signs that we have a pretty decent team and we can work on it before Cardiff.  Our helm is doing a good job and our stand in drummer Debs encouraged us all day.

The Bristol Empire Dragons' Boat

Drummer	Deb
Crew	Left Side	Right Side
	Del (Coach)	Shaw (Manager)
	Candy (V Captain)	Ian
	Ginette	Gary (Captain)
	Bob	Rob
	Bharti	Doc
	Ben E	Stuart
	Chris W	Adam
	Ben C	Mike
	Gary C	Kat
	Heather	Dave
	Janet	Simon
		Gary E
Helm	Matt Hodgson
Team Manager	Shaw Beattie

Results of the 200 meters

	Crew	Points	P = Premier S = Standard
1st	Kingston	16	P
2nd	Batchworth	15	P
3rd	BA	14	P
4th	Amathus	13	P
5th	Typhoon Tigers	12	P
6th	Bristol Empire Dragons	11	P
7th	Raging Dragons	10	P
8th	Kingston Pretenders	9	S
9th	Henley	8	P
10th	Taniwhas	7	P

Results of the 500 meters

Premier	Crew	Points	Position Overall on the Day
1st	Amathus	16	1st
2nd	Kingston Royals	15	2nd
3rd	Batchworth	14	3rd
4th	BA	13	4th
5th	Raging Dragons	12
6th	Taniwhas	11
7th	Typhoon Tigers	10
8th	Bristol Empire Dragons	9
9th	Henley	8
10th	Bees	7

Standard	Crew	Points	Position Overall on the Day
1st	Exe-Calibre	16	11th
2nd	Worcester	15	12th
3rd	Cool Runnings	14	13th
4th	Kingston Pretenders	13	14th
5th	Secklow 100	12	15th
6th	Notts Anaconda	11	16th
7th	Pershore Pheonix	10	17th
8th	Wraysbury	9	18th

Ladies	Crew
1st	Kingston Ladies
2nd	Sirens
3rd	Secklow/Worcester

Exeter, 4th May 2008, Photo Gallery