Hampton Small Boats Head, a race over 3000 metres. Run from Sunbury Lock to the end of Thorneycroft Island. It’s the last junior head before the Christmas break, the WJ16 coxless quads category this year does not have the usual contenders in clubs like Henley, Tideway Scullers and Marlow. Club we generally see consistently in the top few boats at bigger head races. I think this will be an excellent opportunity for smaller programmes or less experienced crews to get invaluable race experience and a chance to take the win this Saturday.
Surbiton High School Boat Club
A school boat club who are consistently at the top end of the categories that they enter, showing their competitiveness as a whole squad and in turn the depth of their athletes. At Kingston Head, SHSBC won the WJ16 2x, 5 seconds over 2nd placed Kingston Rowing Club. And just a week later, taking the win at Teddington Head by a healthy margin over 2nd place. Surbiton has entered 4 boats into this category emphasising their athlete depth but also allowing those who may not have a huge amount of race experience to gain some at a competition where there is very tight racing.
Walton Rowing Club
The Molesey stretch is just down through the lock from where Walton trains, I believe that they will also be in contention this weekend, with 4th and 6th place finishes at the highly competitive Pairs Head in the WJ16 2x and a 3rd at Kingston Head in the quad. In addition to this, I believe this crew has also made the transition from sweep into sculling having spent the majority of last season in a coxed four, most notably winning a silver medal at the Junior Inter-regional Regatta and at National Schools’ Regatta, so these results are testament to their hard work and drive to change disciplines and produce competitive racing results across both disciplines. Walton RC will want to take this momentum into this weekend and look to pip Surbiton for the win.
Twickenham Rowing Club
A club not very well known on the junior circuit. Perhaps more notorious for the GB START programme that rows out of Twickenham and the talented rowers that are in that programme. But as the phrase goes, “Success breeds success”. Their junior programme took a strong 4th and 5th at Teddington Head a few weekends back and they will want to do one better on Saturday and perhaps break into that top 3 and really put down a marker to say that Twickenham RC’s juniors are a competitive outfit and are ready to throw down the gauntlet to some more well-known and established teams like Walton and Surbiton.
Predictions
I think that Surbiton is going to be a hard outfit to beat this Saturday but if anyone is to do it, my money goes to Walton. This is looking to be an amazing category and the result is looking to be close. It will be a game of fine margins; these crews no longer have a coxswain to rely on for steering so there is that added pressure of who will take the best line down the course. There also may be a wildcard crew entered into this event who may completely prove this prediction wrong in Putney High School who row on the infamous Tideway or Peterborough RC coming from farther afield.
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