After a decently dry October, the river on the Kingston stretch is perfectly rowable, and it will host one of the first races of the year for many. The course itself is one large bend, containing a wide variety of straights and turns, so steering proficiency will be important, especially due to the single scull being such a small boat. There are an incredible number of entries for this division, with 52 boats heading out to race the 5.2k downstream course, which makes up for more than 10 percent of the whole race, as there are 500 crews participating in total.
Hampton School Boat Club
Just one lock away, Hampton School Boat Club have entered 17 scullers into the event, with 8 achieving commendable places at the National Schools’ Regatta last year. However, Bernard, Buckingham and Crawshaw are the 3 that stand out to me, as being a year older than some of the other younger J17 competitors in this event will give them an expertise advantage that they perhaps need to finish ahead of their competition. They also rowed together in a Championship eight at the National Schools’ Regatta, where they came 8th in the A-final, showing their strength as a crew. However, the transition from sweeping to sculling is a difficult one to make, and going from racing in such a large boat to a more unstable and nimble single scull will be a tough adjustment.
Molesey Boat Club
Rowing on the same stretch as Hampton, scullers from Molesey Boat Club must see their opposition often; however, they haven’t entered quite as many crews as them. Nevertheless, there are 6 scullers from Molesey taking to the water this Saturday, and special attention should be paid to Penfold, Thomas, Abasov, and Headon, as they rowed a quad together last year, so it’s great to see them taking on the challenge of smaller boat types. As per their results, they have many to back up their strength, such as a 3rd place in the B-final at the National Schools’ Regatta in their quad. In addition, they won the B final at the Junior Sculling Regatta – only Thomas and Headon were in the crew, but a commendable result nevertheless. Unlike the other clubs, a prediction for the placements of three of the scullers from Molesey can be made, as they raced each other at Kingson Regatta at the end of last season. The results concluded with Headon coming first, with Thomas 4 lengths behind him, and Abasov not making it to the final to race one of the others.
Kingston Rowing Club
On their home stretch, Kingston Rowing Club have the advantage of the knowledge of the course, which will largely help them manoeuvre around the number of relatively sharp bends in the course. Very similar to Molesey, Kingston has entered 6 crews in the division, with four of them being a quad that performed very well last year. The quad of Orsinger, Willis, Taylor and Alexander consistently output excellent results in the J16 quads division last year, so it will be interesting to see how they perform against the older competitors of the division. Taylor and Alexander came in 4th during the A final of the National Schools’ Regatta in the quad and 6th in the A-final at JSR in the double, which are both very formidable results. This should fuel their confidence for the start of this year’s head season.
Prediction
With a lot of strong crews racing this Saturday, it’s a challenge to predict who will complete the 5.2k course the fastest. However, I’m sure that the podium will definitely contain either Taylor or Alexander from Kingston Rowing Club, and at least one person from Hampton School Boat Club’s Bernard, Buckingham and Crawshaw. Although the Molesey scullers are strong, I don’t think Headon and Thomas have the results from previous years that are quite as impressive as some of the other scullers on the draw, and they may just miss out on the podium spaces.
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