Chinese New Year - a tale of two halves.

Tuesday, 31 January 2012 17:38

Bright and early on Saturday morning, a few of the team gathered at the boat house to get both the 10 man and 20 man boats out onto the water. The task – to get both boats down to the M Shed, Bristol’s lovely new museum in the docks, to help celebrate the Chinese New Year.

After some discussion, it was decided that the bulk of the crew would paddle the big boat, with Mr Corr at the helm and towing the smaller boat with Jo and Wendy steering with their paddles (not Jon though, cos he’s too fat!) * who would say such a thing – ed!. Whose bright idea was that then?

Henley Race 3

Monday, 16 January 2012 09:01

A severely depleted team took part in the third Henley race.

After a lot of last minute changes we had a team of 18 for the third race.  Setting off from Bristol the temperature was 5 degrees and on reaching Henley it was a sunny -1 degrees this was typical Henley Winter Racing conditions.  The river looked good for racing and we were in fairly positive mood but knowing the paddlers we had missing from the boat it was going to be tough and so it proved.

From the off we couldn't get the balance in the boat right so set off listing heavily to the right we hoped it wasn't going to be our version of the Costa Concordia.  We stayed up right all the way around, despite gallons of water coming in from the bow, that was about the best of the day’s effort really.  The boat never got going and felt sluggish and this was easily proved because Worcester came by us at ease and we could not respond.  Then followed the GB crews and Execalibre all passing us will ease only the skilful helming of Rob took us around the Temple Island turn and despite the lean to the right we came round and actually closed the gap on Execalibre that was short lived and they disappeared into the sun on the stretch up to Henley bridge.  No sooner as we had lost ground on Execalibre then the Rafters came past and we were now all alone at the back of the field now whether this was the "final nail in the coffin" I don't know but whatever it was and whatever was tried nothing happened and we just seemed to go nowhere and were losing ground on the field ahead of us. 

As the bridge came into view and the sounds of drums resonated around Henley the boat picked up slightly and we started to make ground albeit too late and despite another great turn taking some 50 metres out the boat ahead of us we eventually came over the line last.

I think that with the adjusted times we won't be last but in all honesty it's a race we could have done without and I and a couple of others are suffering as a result.  Thanks to all the Bristol contingency that made the long trip to Henley early on Sunday morning - I am sorry that the morning was a disappointment for us.  However I think we cam learn some lessons from this and let's take them forward to the next Henley where we will probably start near the front of the pack and who knows that may help us? 

See you at training on Sunday. 

Julia's Spinathon for Help For Heroes

Tuesday, 13 December 2011 07:06

Not content with raising money for Water Aiid a couple of months ago by paddling a Dragon Boat from Bath to Bristol as a novice paddler - Julia who is now Bristol's newest convert to Dragon Boat racing after racing at Henley has just completed a 24hr  Spinathon raising vital funds for Help For Heroes...

Henley Winter Series Race II - Sunday 4th December 2011

Tuesday, 06 December 2011 07:39

Henley Race II – 3rd December 2011 The weather is beginning to change and now feels more like the weather we expect for Henley we started off with temperatures around 8 degrees in Bristol and these slowly dropped as we approached Henley. It was good to see Gary Corr in the car following his operations but I was concerned of his intentions surely he wasn’t going to be in or on the boat in the race. My fears were allayed he was only coming for the social side of the event and to take some pictures – was this the Gary we all know?