QEHS Rowing News
Click the links below to read up-to-date news from Mr Gaines and Miss Walton.
Tyne New Year's Head
January 2023
QEHS rowers competed this weekend at Tyne New Year’s head. It was great to see everyone back on the water. The bad weather and high river levels has prevented any rowing on the water. Pam reported that she had trialled a lot of different crews for this competition. It was great to hear that we had two Oct boats out. It is always impressive to see the power that these boats generate.
The next few weeks are critical as we build towards the key spring and summer competitions. We look forward to having a successful season.
Durham Long Distance Sculls & Single Boat Head Competition
10th November 2022
QEHS Hexham Rowers took part in the Durham Long Distance Sculls and Single Boat Head competition last Saturday. We had a range of boats competing over a distance of 1800m. Friday night was wet and windy and the team were loading boats onto trailers well into the dark! However, Saturday was warm and calm, which made for great racing and spectating conditions.
The major obstacle on the river is the bridge that you can see in the photographs. We had two winning crews over the event. Congratulations to both of them. It was brilliant to see the cooperation and encouragement from every member of the QEHS Rowing Club. A special thank you must go to all the parent volunteers that helped make this event a success.
Berwick Long Distance Sculls
November 2022
A small contingent of QEHS rowers made the long journey to compete at Berwick upon Tweed this weekend. The competition was the Berwick Long Distance sculls, held over 5000m. Emily and Ania (Y10) were the fastest women’s double crew on the day completing the course in 25 minutes and thirteen seconds. Also winning on the day were Robbie and Edward who won the open double section, in a time of 23 minutes 57.
Well done to all who competed. We are very proud of you!
Tyne Regatta
July 2022
At the end of the Tyne Regatta, J16 rowers Henry and Sam travelled to Nottingham to trial for the GB Junior Team to take on a French Team in July 2022 in France. The course at the National Water Sports Centre in Nottingham is always badly affected if the wind is strong and gusty. With weather patterns changing, it seems to be a more regular occurrence and once again caused the cancellation of the GB Trials after the time trial. Sam and Henry came 6th in the TT, which would have been good enough to get them into the A Final. They were pleased with their TT position but severely disappointed that they could not try to improve on that position in the cancelled side-by-side racing.
The penultimate local regatta held at Tyne ARC was also affected by the weather conditions, which produced challenging racing conditions down the Stella straight to Newburn. Tidal waters and a gusty fierce cross wind created a few problems for crews as they tried to get a level start position and then the worst racing conditions experienced by those racing on the North Station.
QEHS Rowing were involved in 15 finals recording 9 wins with every age group contributing to the wins total. This was a good result as illness, injury and Covid created many changed crew decisions for coaches. However, the most exciting race of the day was produced by J14 rowers Hugh and Adam in the first race of the day for QEHS, losing by less than a metre at the end of the 1000m course.
The first win for QEHS Rowing was recorded by Adam’s brother Ben and his rowing partner Ned taking on students from St Aidan’s College, Durham University in the final of the Open Men’s Double Sculls. Both Ned and Ben are very experienced coxes with many wins from coxing but Tyne is proving a happy hunting ground for this partnership. Last year Tyne Regatta was their first rowing win ever in their J16 double scull and they were very pleased to repeat last year’s success moving up to race in a senior category.
The second win came as two QEHSRC crews ended up in the final of the WJ14 B Coxed Quads with Naomi, Chloe, Ella, Grace and Amy (Cox) just getting the better of club mates Martha, Hannah, Pippa, Ellie and Josh (Cox).
The final of the J14 B Boys was also contested by two QEHS crews. Ben, Elliot, Isaac, Felix and George (Cox) won by a short margin against Cameron, Josh, Liam, Oliver and Ella (Cox).
Other wins came from:
• WJ15 Coxed Quad: Rachel, Chloe, Freya, Ellen and Adam (Cox)
• WJ16 Coxless Four: Lucy, Meg, Halle, Annie
• J16 Double Scull: Henry, Sam
• J18 Single Scull: Robbie
• J18 Coxless Quad: Robbie, Christian, David (CBS), Joe (TARC)
• Open Coxless Quad: Henry, Lucas, Lewis, Sam.