Durham Small Boats Head 2023 – Preview

The afternoon, featuring sweep boats, is our first chance to see how the college crews of Durham University stack up early in the season. Both the open and women’s coxed fours have a vast volume of entries which are banded to provide us with some exciting match ups.

Open 4+

Band 1:

Last year’s leading men’s programme, Collingwood, has two crews in band one. Hartshorn (Collingwood) should be pushed all the way by Hild and Bede (Carr) and a slightly unknown crew from University College (Bird) may be close behind them. Collingwood’s second four (Loveday) make up the band but expect Hartshorn to be too quick for the other colleges.

Band 2:

Hild and Bede’s second four (List) alongside Grey College (Qasem) should be the stand-out crews in band two. South College (Szpaczynski) should have the pace to finish ahead of Collingwood (Billings) who are the third four within their own club.

Band 3:

Butler College (Longbottom and Johnson) should provide us with the victor in band three. Hatfield did not have a good season last year and will be hoping for a change of fortune competing against the lower ranked crews from Collingwood and Hild Bede.

Band 4: 

A surprise entry in band four is from Durham Amateur (Matthews), a masters D crew, although with their experience (especially in the cox seat) they may cause an upset. The St. John’s (Weston) crew is not the top boat we expected that performed well last year and we can expect a very close race with John Snow (Brown), St. Aiden’s (Hanks) and University College (Whan Tong). St. Aidens have looked good in training and will be up there with Durham Amateur and St. Johns for the victory.

Open Women 4+

Band 1:

Once again, the strength in depth of Collingwood College is on display in the women’s coxed fours. The Spanton and Kempster crews from Collingwood should be well matched and it will be close between them and Hild and Bede (Fordham) for the win, with Hatfield (Garbutt) probably looking to challenge the second Collingwood boat.

Band 2:

A third boat from Collingwood (Polomsky) features in band two alongside second boats from Hatfield (Cooper) and Hild and Bede (Diotavelli). St. Johns College and University College have their top boats in this band and they should both be fast having retained good athletes from last year’s crews. St. Johns and Hild and Bede will likely be the fastest crews, however there won’t be much between them.

Band 3: 

A great representation of the appeal of college rowing in Durham sees a huge field of twelve crews competing in band three. Seeing this volume of female athletes (a significant number being new to the sport) is massively encouraging, however predicting who will perform well becomes very difficult. South College (Barker), Van Mildert (Gill), St. Mary’s (Oldham) and Butler (Ledger) may well be the crews to watch but the pressure will be on the novice coxes with many completing their first race through Elvet bridge.

Open 2x 

College rowers meet school boys and a club entry in the double sculls. St. Cuthberts (Hodgkinson), University College (Timmins), Hild and Bede (Milburn) and Grey College (Larsen) will all be well-matched, however it is unlikely that they will be able to catch Thompson from Lambton, and a well drilled crew from Queen Elizabeth High School (Phillips) may also challenge some of their older competitors.

Open 2-

We don’t often see too many pairs competing in this series but this weekend should see a very tight race between Durham School (Hills) and Durham Amateur (Scott). We also have a Butler College (Woznica-Hughes) crew alongside a second boat from Durham School (Regan-Teesdale). The Scott crew from Durham Amateur are the favourites, with Durham School (Hills) and Butler College hoping to push them all the way.

Open J18 1x

Band 1

Three scullers from Tees are making the journey to Durham on Saturday; Makepeace, Murphy and Williams have all had good results this year with Makepeace leading the pack at his home head race. Hills (Durham School) may challenge this group, however I expect Davison (Durham Amateur) should take a second victory of the day.

Band 2 

The second band of scullers sees another local sculler as favourite. Flatters from Durham Amateur is the pick of the athletes in this band, although Allison (Chester-le-Street) won’t be far away. Ridley (Hexham), and the three scullers from Queen Elizabeth (Burrows, Grant, and Phillips) who all know each other well will be well matched along with Smith from Talkin Tarn.

Women J18 1x

This could be the closest race of the day with two inter-club battles taking place. Palmer and Youlton from Chester-le-Street meet Seymour and Wildsmith from Tyne Amateur. Add in Wilson from Durham School, Scott from Cambois plus Watson from Lakeland and there will probably be less than ten seconds separating the top four or five boats. Wildsmith, Youlton and Seymour should be the top three finishers, with Wildsmith the slight favourite.

Women J18 4x-

The women’s junior quads features two entries from Hexham (Teague and Benbury), Tees (Sirokurova) whilst Queen Elizabeth (Huddleston) also line up. The Tees crew have looked strong, however the Teague crew from Hexham may challenge them this weekend.

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