National Club Championships 2013 – Olympic rowing lake Eton
Dorney
The chance to race at a unique venue such as the Olympic rowing
lake was one I really didn’t want to miss, also the chance to race for our
local club waterborn and earn us some reputation on a national level. James
Mcging, Tom Tout and I travelled up on the Friday night after work and talked
tactics and ideas through in the services on the way up, I camped outside the
venue and parked up in the morning awaiting everyone else to arrive. The race
was a 6km racing using the relief lane and also the main straight of the lake,
and then back again half way. There was also a triathlon taking place and so
part of the lake was cordoned off for swimmers and the road around the lake was
being used for cycling and running. Event tents and trade stalls were set up
and a good buzz was around in the air. We had a good turn out from waterborn of
about 10 people but were severely outnumbered by clubs such as Baysup, Braylake
and Blue Chip but we had a strong field and were still confidant we could give
a good account of ourselves. Armed with our snazzy “wife beater” team tops we
certainly looked the part. For me this was the first real test of my newly
trimmed C-14 in preparation for Holland, its first competitive outing and I was
intrigued to see how well it would perform considering the conditions were near
perfect for the board. Being a lake there was no current, no swell other than
what the wind was causing as surface chop and maybe a F4 wind at best blowing straight
towards us from the start line. Once again I had a fairly bad start but soon
realised my board was getting filled with water from board chop and paddle
splash, the balance started going as the water sploshed from one end to the
other, I had to step back and paddle with the board on a slow trim while the
water drained, I took a line over to my left and tried to stay clear of the
main pack, once I had drained the water I shimmied up and got the board to its
ideal speed trim. I could now start my racing and focused on moving up some
placements. I kept left and out of the mass of boards and chop, the wind was
luckily slowing a lot of other people down and I kept slowly but surely passing
people on the 2km slog to the far end of the relief lane, for the last 500m I was
side by side with Adam Stilling but couldn’t quite pass him, as I got close he
dug deep and kept ahead and in the draft of the main 6 or so racers. On the
turn under the bridge I managed to get passed him and tried my best to get a
gap even if it was small between me and Adam just to keep him out of my draft. I
snuck onto the train behind Phil Plume and tried to get a bit of a breather. After
a few 100 metres id keep pulling out to try and overtake but almost as soon as I
did I noticed how fast they were going and couldn’t maintain the pace needed to
overtake, I slotted back in and tried to bide my time. After trying this for
the next 2km I got the break I was looking for, on the corner back under the
start bridge they called out for Phil to say his number, it was just enough to
distract him and push him wide, I give a quick sprint and a tighter turn and
tried to power away from him and catch Mark Slater, I got behind him but
realised my best bet was to keep left again and try and pull away into the
wind. I got ahead of Mark and set Scott Warren as my target, I soon pulled
along side him and he started to head my way to slot in behind me, we were both
on 14ft boards and so I had less of a chance to lose him as opposed to Mark.
Scott was hot on my tail for the next 500m or so and I tried to make the most
of my turn under the 1km bridge to make a gap, I used foot steering and the
shallow water to lean enough into the bank and keep the speed up where Scott
had to use a step back turn and lost some speed, it gave me a slightly larger
turn but the speed increase was just enough to get him out of the direct line
of my draft, he wasn’t going to let this stop him through and it became a 1km
sprint from now until the finish, Ollie Shilston 1st and Paul
Simmons 2nd weren’t too far away but I could never get close enough
to them to worry them too much. The sprint finish was horrendous and I was
convinced Scott was closer than he was when I kept glancing back and though he
was saving himself for a flourish at the end but I managed to keep ahead of him
and secure a 3rd place overall and 1st place in the 14ft
Class, Scott just a few seconds later and 2nd in the 14ft class.
I was really chuffed with my performance and how the board
handled and the result meant I was the top UK paddler to compete in the 6
assigned season races to qualify for 11 cities entrance to be paid for. With
bling guaranteed and as many points as I could have possibly got for our club
it was time for us the show our hand at the team sprints, Marie, Paul, Ollie
and I were in the 12’6 open sprints and we had had a good set of paddlers for
the surf shape sprints also, James, Tom, Rob and the other Tom. Everyone did a
brilliant job and waterborn were crowned surf shape and race board sprint
champions and took some bling back for the club house at the Crabshell
Kingsbridge. We knew we had done really well with Marie taking 1st, simmo 2nd,
Christina 1st, Louie 2nd, myself 1st, and various great results from the team and
figured we were in with a shout of the top 3. As the results came through it
was a very close shout indeed, we missed out on being the first nation club
champions by 1 point, BaySup being the winners. Big Congratulations to them
all, and hope they keep the trophy warm for us for next year. 
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