The Numbers Don’t Lie: How to Win at Henley Royal Regatta

It’s a bright and warm Sunday morning in the Thames Valley: finals day of Henley Royal Regatta 2021. You find yourself enjoying a Weatherspoons Breakfast with some of your equally geeky rowing pals, but soon find yourself a tribe divided as you debate the factors that lead to a win at the Royal.

One of your group suggests that wearing a t-shirt underneath your unisuit adds the compression needed to keep blood flowing around the shoulders through the race (this individual is likely still a little drunk from the night before). Others, however, produce more sensible suggestions: does your station predict your fate? How about your performance at SHORR, NSR and the like?

The bottom line is this is your one chance to solidify your status amongst your peers as a rowing genius forever. If you can produce powerful arguments here, your membership at the regatta is all but secured. With that in mind, we’re here to help. Of course, we can’t promise a victory, but what’s the harm in trying?

Station

This is a somewhat controversial issue. Some claim to have a sixth sense for which bank will produce more wins on a given day. We can’t quickly test this hypothesis, but there is undoubtedly an undue advantage to one of the stations – though this isn’t as clear-cut as we might like it to be, as we will soon see.

At the 2018 rendition of the Royal, 65% of winning crews (15 / 23) raced on the Berkshire station in their final. At the 2019 regatta, 63% of winning crews (15/24, the additional event was the King’s Cup) raced on the Berkshire station. By conventional criteria, this difference is considered to be very statistically significant. However, having only used two years’ worth of data, I wouldn’t trust such an outcome.

If you’re currently picturing the course on a busy summer day at the regatta, you’ve likely already formed your own conclusion about why this Berks-heavy trend has emerged – it’s probably one of two scenarios. The most common suggestion is to do with the stream (which we will explore later, but suffice to say, I don’t believe this is the deciding factor). On the contrary, If you’re anything like me, you’re seeing launches chugging up and down the Reach, generating wash that disproportionately impacts the crew nearest to the traffic – the Bucks station. This is entirely reasonable, but is it a position you could defend in the Catherine Wheel with anything concrete? Well, perhaps.

If we assume for a moment a ‘typical traffic pattern’ on the Henley reach on Sunday that looks a little like this:

• Morning (11:30-12:30): Relatively few launches, only a little wash generated
• Over lunch (12:40-14:30): High-point of launch traffic, peak wash
• Afternoon (14:40 onwards) Traffic dies down, similar wash to the morning period generated

We can perhaps begin to see a fragile pattern emerge. In the morning, where we assume a reasonably subdued traffic pattern, crews in the finals between 2018-19 had a 42% chance of winning on the Buckinghamshire Station. This is far higher than the average chance of winning on Bucks over the same period, 36%. Moving on to lunchtime, the probability of a Bucks crew winning drops to a mere 20% – odds I certainly wouldn’t put my chips on. However, if we dive into the final section of afternoon racing, our chances of winning on Bucks soar to a comparably bright 46%.

So perhaps there is a curved trend here, one you can use to secure your victory over a full English.

However, on an aside, this shouldn’t be the case. Throughout the regatta, four courses have existed (the old course, the new course, the experimental course and the straight course). The Stewards commissioned the Straight Course to challenge the Berks advantage directly. Yet, even on even the most well-balanced course to date, there is still an element of bias. On days when the stream is particularly strong, the Berkshire station enjoys a considerably faster line. In contrast, when a strong South-westerly wind blows, the advantage lies to the Bucks station, which has superior shelter.

Regardless, the Straight Course did address the inherent problems of the older courses, and between 1975 and 1984, 51% of races were won on Bucks and 49% on Berks. This might even add more credence to our wash theory, given that the average water disturbance generated by a launch has likely increased since the ’70s, explaining the 14% or so shift back to a Berkshire advantage.

Previous Success

I’m something of a fan of up-front conclusions, so here goes: don’t win before Henley.

Now, take a breath. I can already hear the cracking of knuckles and the scraping of chairs as keyboard warriors prepare to obliterate me in the comments section but bear with me for a moment.

Peaking and tapering are a set of controversial ideas in sport generally, let alone on the water. Regardless, the accepted suggestion in rowing is that rowers can peak once, maybe twice, in a season. For juniors, the peaking cycle is gruelling, with Nat Schools often falling across exam periods. This means that, realistically, a crew must choose when to peak over the summer. For some, National Schools’ is a clear choice, whilst the romantics can’t resist the tug of Henley; regardless, this means that the top crews at Dorney probably won’t be collecting a little red box a few weeks later – the usual margins are just too tight. There are, of course, exceptions that we will explore. But first, let’s take a look at the data.

Between 2016 and 2019, 10 of the 12 junior crews that won at Henley raced at NSR (the two exceptions being Scotch and Y Quad Cities). Out of these 10 Henley champions, only three won their races at Nat Schools. One of these crews was the phenomenal 2018 St Paul’s Crew – dubbed the best schoolboy crew in history – so one exception to my rule is already accounted for. Windsor Boys’ were the second winning championship boy’s quads in 2017 ahead of their victory, with the third win coming from Claire’s Court School – also in the championship boy’s quads – in 2016. Interestingly, therefore, you have to hark back to Gloucester’s heyday in 2015 to find the last time a women’s crew took gold at NSR and went on to win in the DJ. But what does this tell us?

Looking at the outcomes above, we find that the fastest crews at National Schools’ are unlikely to be the fastest at Henley – and that’s OK; crews optimise for their priorities. Crew rankings regularly shift somewhat substantially between the two events, as my following example should demonstrate.

At the last rendition of the Royal, the Diamond Jubilee Challenge Cup was – as per usual – stacked with the best junior women’s crews from not only the UK but around the globe. Henley Rowing Club’s crew of Hannah Hills, Sophia Hahn, Daisy Bellamy and Georgia Brown were pegged as favourites going into the event, having dominated the category at National Schools’. And, in all fairness, they made it to the weekend – an impressive achievement – but failed to secure a seat in the final, which we might have otherwise expected from a high-calibre crew. Bellamy made the final the previous year as a part of the Marlow crew beaten to the line by an incredible gang from Y Quad Cities; she had also previously raced for GB at the Coupe. Hahn was the spare for the US national squad the same year, whilst Hills and Brown were deep in the trials system. Most of the crew had also previously won in the Championship Girl’s Eights at SHORR.

Ultimately, this highly experienced crew lost out to the eventual winners – Latymer’ A’ – on Saturday. The Latymer crew peaked at precisely the right time, remaining unfazed by a mid-B-final finish at National Schools’ and ultimately building towards a phenomenal win at Henley. Even when the Latymer girls fell at the QF stage of Henley Women’s, they remained resolute in their aim and were ultimately successful.

There are, of course, exceptions – but these are exceptions. Hopefully, therefore, you’ll be able to solidify another victory here by elegantly dismantling your interlocutor’s suggestion that you can pick the winners based on previous performance.

So, there you have it:

• Go forth.
• Spread your newfound knowledge.
• Secure your place in the rowing punditry hall of fame.

Conclusions

In case you hadn’t realised by this point, this piece is all in jest. The numbers are real, and the pseudo-conclusions I suggest are valid, but none of the above accounts for the essence of what makes our sport so unique.

It can be easy for those who regularly experience high-octane racing to forget we exist in a strange no-mans-land: one of false dichotomies and oxymorons. Ultimately, we are a people who inhabit the penumbras of sport; yet it is from these shadows that legends emerge. The best crews don’t rely on the status-quo; they reset the score – and there is only one place where a new line can truly be drawn: Henley Royal Regatta.

So, if you’re racing at Henley this year, whether you finished 1st, 4th or 14th at National Schools’, and whichever station you find yourself on come the first day of racing, I truly wish you the very best of luck. The Henley course is hallowed ground, and whatever your outcome, rest assured: you’re writing history.

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