With Easter behind us and the nights getting longer, summer is almost upon us. With it brings exams, deadlines and most importantly, multi-lane racing. Head season has been officially over for some time, giving clubs and schools plenty of opportunities to reap the rewards of training camps home and away. This Sunday sees junior and club rowing descend to Eton, Dorney, while the world of university rowing will set up camp for BUCS Regatta at the National Watersports Centre in Nottingham. 12 crews have entered Open Schoolboy 8+ and this early barnburner will blow away the winter cobwebs and set crews on the path to Nationals.
The sensible place to start this preview is with Shiplake College. As winners of the Schools’ Head, they have to be favourites coming into this new block of racing. While head racing results count for a lot, over the shorter, 2000m course all bets are off. This far out from NSR means that crews will not yet have peaked and not all seat racing will have concluded. As such, Shiplake’s early season result stands them in good stead but they must ensure to build on this and not fizzle out as they have done in previous years. It has been noted that a win or second place over the Tideway course does not guarantee the Bees a top medal position at National Schools’. However, given Eton and St Paul’s are tucked away in Challenge 8s and that they are carrying the 2nd fastest pair in the country, I expect Shiplake to comfortably win this event.
Over the 6.8km course that the Tideway offers, Radley and Shrewsbury were nine seconds apart with Radley getting the better of Sam Grant’s boys. These crews will likely place second and third on Sunday but in which order that is still to be decided. Despite their 4th place at SHORR, my head says that Shrewsbury will overturn the result because traditionally, Radley always has their summer peak in time for Henley Royal Regatta.
Providing it is Eton and St Pauls’ 1st VIIIs racing in Challenge 8s then their 2nd VIIIs will struggle against the raw speed that Shiplake has. That being said, based on Tideway results, it should be expected that they will be around the same sort of speed as KCS Wimbledon and King’s Chester. These two crews placed ninth and eighth respectively and finished with just a second between them. After a quick glance down the SHORR results, you will also come across Hampton School who placed a disappointing 12th. As such, they can also be included in this mix of crews who will be battling for the minor spots in the A Final.
St George’s College and Pangbourne College are two crews who will perform relatively well in Non-Championship Eights at NSR. their 5th and 6th placing on the Tideway gives us an indication that they are of similar speeds at the end of the head season. Only time will tell how well these two schools have used their training camps and Easter holidays.
The draw is rounded off by Claires Court and The Grange. Having not raced against everyone back in March it is difficult to gauge their speed coming into this event. Claires Court found themselves in the bottom half of the results at SHORR and this is something they will clearly look to overturn if they consider themselves a good sweep school. Over the years, we have come to expect outstanding things on the sculling scene fro, CCS and as such expectations are lower when it comes to sweeping. That being said, they did not have a quad entered at the recent Junior Sculling Regatta so there is a high chance this is their priority boat for the season. In which case, there is work to be done.
My prediction… Shiplake to win.
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