Well you’ve got to put you hands up to them, it may have been Milton Keynes but it certainly wasn’t a dull day – a big thanks and well done to Secklow 100 for hosting their first BDA League event.

Once you’d negotiated your way round the Milton Keynes roundabout system you came across a stunning lake and hotel with plenty of parking, lots of open grass space to establish Base-Henley, a windmill (clearly a must have for all future BDA races), a mini-art gallery, posh port-a-loos, a freezer full of ice cream (which if only it wasn’t quite so cold would have been so appealing), they’d even got the bacon-butties and tea ready before 8.30 – unheard of!

To add to the madness of it all, the whole day was about trying to win concrete cows.

Even if you got bored of racing you could always play spot the big (dead) fish, crabs or the Red Arrow who’d clearly broken his GPS.

The start line was the place to be – the 500m wall being the only place at the venue where you could keep vaguely warm and out of the wind – and was a good viewing point of the other races. In fact we kind of spent a long time there as the races got further and further behind schedule mainly due to the relentless side wind. What did happen to Saturday’s mini-heat wave?

But even there the entertainment continued – there was the ‘guess which part of the starters gazebo is going to collapse first’ competition. Then the teenage spectators added a little bit of amusement to the start line with them seemingly jumping off concrete dam walls into nowhere – although Tom assures us there was land on the other side…. And then there was the guy shouting ‘Go’ when we were lined up on the start line – well we all knew it wasn’t the start official who called it but we couldn’t ‘not go’ in case she called go straight afterwards and the other crews would have got ahead. So we decided to paddle half way down the course before we thought it was safe enough to stop and go back.

While I’m on the subject, we did do some paddling! In fact we did some pretty amazing racing.

In our first heat, we came 2^nd to Worcester Dragons with a time of 48.95s. We had a bit of a wait until the results were out to find out whether we’d made it straight into the Semis and as the wind picked up some of the race times picked up too so we soon realised we’d need to get ready for a 200m Rep.

We perfected our style, won our race (despite going backwards on the start line!) and came away as the fastest 200m Rep winner in a time of 49.83s, getting us through to the Semis.

Unfortunately in the Semis, although we put in our best time of 48.49s and had a close race, we didn’t quite make Semis fastest runner-up as we lost to Kingston and Typhoon. We didn’t qualify for the Major Finals of the 200m and there were no Minor Finals so we were placed 6^th overall for the 200m.

So we went to sit down to have lunch, only to realise there was no lunch break and Henley (or ‘Team Scotland’ as Forbes and Iain had renamed us) were back out again for the 500m. Henley got a flying start holding Bristol down the course but on the line they found that little bit more and just reached the bridge before us.

But as Carolyn said ‘Henley don’t do reps’ so, we didn’t. After an even longer wait we realised we’d qualified as Fastest Heat Runner-Up and were straight through to the Cup Semis.

So we sat down finally for a proper lunch break sustained by the umpteenth cup of tea and Wendy’s and Isobel’s cakes and had a chance to stop to watch some of the other races. There were 20 crews in total – including 4 scratch crews – one of whom, Weldons Wailers doing fantastically crossing the finish line ahead of Wraysbury and Worcester Dragonflies in their Reps.

Eventually we were back out again, only to realise we were racing against Amathus (help!); Typhoon (again, having beaten us in the 200m) and Exe-Calibre. All we had was the knowledge that our 10s pushes seemed to help us creep forward seat-by-seat against the other crews and the determination that this time we wouldn’t be beaten at the finish (well, maybe by Amathus). And it worked, we came 2^nd to Amathus just holding off Typhoons and coming across the line with a time of 2.01.39 putting us into the Cup Minor Final.

Hoorah(!), and as Tanya said there was “nothing else left to save ourselves for”, so we decided we might as well go ahead and win it – which we did - coming just ahead of the hosts Secklow, Typhoon and Bristol, to qualify at the end of the day as Cup Minor Final winners and 5^th in the 500m.

Oh but there was one more race. The ladies race. Against Kingston. And this time the pressure was really on as the trophy was not just a cow but a ‘pink’ cow. So while the boys were being tough and getting the boats out of the water and onto the trailer, the girls joined up with Secklow to once again do battle. The 3 ladies crews raced head-to-head down the course but Kingston once again found the edge and pushed ahead on the finish line. So no pink cows this time but we’ll be training again before Albert Docks, and will next time be armed with a ‘Henley’ start, so beware…….

And that was about it. Adding to our recent spate of losing and breaking equipment, we almost lost another dragonboat head – a few times – and I think even so it may be slightly missing one eyebrow. Then there were our gazebos which we watched tumbling dangerously to the lake’s edge as we sat in the boat unable to do anything. Thanks to whichever crew it was who eventually rescued them – but by this time we’d once again broken another club gazebo. Has anyone kept a record of how many we’ve got through now? Well I don’t think we’ve got any more left, so Pete, you’ll be able to join me in the tea queue instead of the ‘gazebo-erecting-crew’ at Albert Docks!

A big thanks to everyone who came: Tom (for some inspirational drumming and calling); Derek for getting the boats there and helming and screaming from the back of the boat for us too; Julia for setting the race pace at stroke; Tanya for her motivational team talks; Isobel for rushing backwards and forwards to find out when our next race was; Iain and Forbes for their constant Scottish banter which no one really understood but we took to generally mean ‘paddle-harder’; Sue and Chris F for the variety of warm-ups (the weather ensured there was no need for cool downs); Esther for giving Dave a massage (I’ve never seen him look so happy); Steve L for being his usual generous self and helping all the other crews as well as us; and equally as importantly Geoff, Cassy, Gabs, Pete, Phil T, Noel and Caralyn for their fab company, team spirit and paddling.

Report by: Your Chairman (Emma)