Henley Dragons at Atlantic Wharf

Another BDA League event – another early start. This time in Cardiff. With the sun peeking through the clouds, a fleet of vehicles from the Home Counties made their way down the M4 for the next race in the calendar, hoping to improve on the results of previous events.

After establishing a base camp next to The Wharf Pub and launching the boat, there was just enough time for a bit of light breakfast before the day’s proceedings began. First for the day were the 200m races, seeing us drawn against WAM, Three River Serpents and ExeCalibre. An excellent start saw us leave WAM and ExeCalibre behind, but a couple of drives were going to be called for to shake off Three River Serpents. All the way down to the short course, Henley and Three River Serpents battled to take the lead, but a final push in the last 50m saw Henley edge Three River Serpents into 2nd place as we crossed the finish line. A win in this first race enabled us to advance straight through to the semi finals for the 200m and more importantly to avoid the reps.

Next up were the 200m semi-finals, with Henley up against BA, Colenorton and Worcester. BA have put in a strong performance this season, so Henley needed another strong start to stand a chance in beating BA. With the crew all pumped up for a tough race against BA, Henley executed another great start, taking half a boat length lead, but it wasn’t long before BA started to fight back, edging ever closer. More drives from our ‘cool as a cucumber’ helm ensured we challenged BA all the way down the course, edging them into 2nd place by 0.5 second. This win took us into the unfamiliar position (this season) of getting into a major final.

By the time we had warmed down, it was time to warm up for the 200m Major Final – don’t you just hate it when that happens ? The 200m major final saw us line up against Thames Taniwhas, Amathus, and Kingston. Excited to be in our first major final of the year, we were determined to pull out all of the stops and try to keep as close to the leaders as we could. Where did it all end ? Well, not quite how you might have imagined. First place went to Amathus, second to Thames, third to Henley and fourth place to Kingston. Woohoo !

After a very short break indeed, it was onto the 500m races and the same line up as our first 200m race – WAM, ExeCalibre and Three River Serpents. After being beaten in the 200m races, Three River Serpents were sure to want revenge in the 500m races, so on the way to the start our helm prepared us for another challenge. The start of our 500m race was much like the 200m race with Henley and Three River Serpents battling to take a lead, however, almost three quarters of the way down the course, Three River Serpents called for a drive and seemed to be edging ahead. Despite a sterling effort by Henley, we weren’t able to pull back on Three River Serpents on this occasion, so took second place, two seconds behind the winners. A little disappointing considering we had beaten them earlier in the day. There was now a possibility we might face the reps.

By a mysterious twist of fate, we narrowly avoided the reps and like our racing earlier in the day went straight through to the cup semi-finals against Thames, Bristol (again) and Amathus Bees. Unfortunately the odds were against us – with one of our paddlers having to catch a plane home to Amsterdam (yes, we’ve got some very committed members), we knew this was going to be another tough race. It would have been great to get a 2nd place after Thames and make the Major Final, but with one paddler down this wasn’t realistic – we came 3rd.

Onto the home stretch and the last race of the day – the 500m Minor Final. We were up against BA, Kingston and Thames Raging Dragons. In what proved to be our most exciting race of the day, all 4 crews were pretty much neck-and-neck all the way down the course. It wasn’t until the last 50m that each crew started to put in the extra drives needed to win. And the result ? BA took 1st place, Henley 2nd, Kingston 3rd and Thames Raging Dragons 4th. Not bad for a days racing.

Race Reporter: Steve Siddell