At 54.6 degrees north of the equator, Teesside is the furthest BDA event from Henley but that wasn’t enough to put off our team as we hired a minibus and headed up the M1. 

On a sunny Saturday afternoon we piled into the bus and set off for our 5 ½ hour journey.  Stopping half way for a Wimpy dinner, we arrived in Middlesbrough at 10pm in surprisingly high spirits.   After checking in to the hotel (which was more like a furnace that night) we had enough time for a pint before heading to bed.

A wonderfully late start (apart from the few people driving up on the day) meant we had plenty of time for our cooked breakfast, toast and cereal before a 15 minute drive to the race venue.  Given what happened later, this would seem to be the secret to a successful race day!

With the news that Bristol had pulled out of racing, we had high hopes that the program would be re-drawn to put us in an easier heat.  It wasn’t to be, so we started the day racing BA and Typhoon over 200m.   BA had a bad day at Bristol, and we had secret hopes that we could ruin their day at Teesside as well.

It was winners and two fastest runners-up to the semis, the rest to the reps.  As we belted down the course, we crossed the line in 50.19 ahead of BA by 0.9 seconds and 2 seconds ahead of Typhoon.  Straight through to the semis, we started the day on a high.

Back on the water again for the semis, we found ourselves up against BA and this time joined by Amathus Bees.  This time it was simple – winners through to the major final, everyone else to minor final or tail race based on times.  After our success in Bristol, we’d had a taste of the major final and we liked it.

We knew BA would want revenge, so we had to push even harder than before.  With Tom and Allie doing calls the entire way down the course, we crossed the line level with BA and we didn’t know which way it would go.  When the times were up, it was a brilliant moment – not only were we 0.12 seconds faster than before, we had also beaten BA and bagged ourselves a spot in the major final!

Whilst BA had to make do with winning the minor final, we headed out on the water to line up against Amathus and 3 Rivers (making their only BDA appearance for 2009).  It was clear from the times they had posted earlier that Amathus were in a whole different league (under 47 seconds in their semi!) so it was us versus 3 Rivers for second place. 

We paddled as well as we could and crossed the line together with them, but they beat us by 0.3 seconds (Amathus were 4 whole seconds ahead!).  Despite only having made our first major final at the last event, somehow now we weren’t satisfied with third place and came away somewhat disappointed!

Anyway after a 45 minute lunch break, we returned to the water for the 500m heats where we took on Typhoon and Raging.  We finished a comfortable 5 seconds ahead, but Werner wasn’t amused by the confession we hadn’t put in as much effort as we could have done.  We went into the second cup semi together with (yep you guessed it) BA and Notts.

To make it to the major final, we had to win or be the fastest runner up.  As 3 Rivers were taking on Amathus in the other semi, it was likely they would take the fastest runner up spot so we needed to win.  We’d already beaten BA twice today and this was no time to change our habits!

Knowing we hadn’t exhausted ourselves in the heat, we used all our saved up energy because this was the most important race of the day.  It was a genuinely close result, with the officials having to bring out the video replay to ascertain who had won.  But we did it!  We had beaten BA by only 0.25 seconds (our time was 2.04.72), with Notts a few seconds behind.

So we were in to our second major final of the day!  With a guaranteed minimum of third place, it still wasn’t enough. Because our semi was so close, BA got the fastest runner up slot and joined us in the major final.  We had now beaten BA on all 3 occasions in the day and we wanted that second place.

It turned out to be most closely fought race of the entire day, and across the line nobody had any idea which way the result went.  It would come down to which team took their last stroke at the right moment.  At the prize giving they kept up the suspense, reading out the times for second and third before they announced which team was which.  Only 0.2 seconds separated the teams.

And then it was official, Henley had taken third place leaving BA to take second.  It sounds ridiculous, but we were gutted.  Only 2 weeks on from being over the moon about the possibility of fourth place, and now third just wasn’t good enough.

Unfortunately due to a mistake by the trophy company, there were no trophies to be presented at the end of the day but we got a bottle of bucks fizz (to share between 20!) and the promise of our trophy arriving at the next event.  Seems like we’re going to need a new cabinet!

We’d like to say thanks to Alan from Powerhouse for joining us for the day, to BA for putting up a great fight and to everyone who made the trek up that far north for Henley’s best race day ever.  Teesside was a brilliant venue and we can’t wait to go back there next year!