Head of the Dart

A very strong north westerly wind put the annual Head of the Dart race in jeopardy with conditions expected to be rough with an incoming tide from the south. In the event the race went ahead with surface water no more than an inconvenient chop for the fifty nine crews taking part over the nine and a half mile race from Dartmouth to Totnes.

 

The strong head wind did have an effect on the finishing times however with no crew coming home in under fifty minutes. Fastest crew of the day was an eight from Pangbourne College who boated at Totnes and rowed the nine and a half miles down to the start before even starting to race, proving that it pays to warm up before an event. Their time was 50 minutes, 55 seconds. The Dart-Totnes coxless quad of Peter Kerswell-Jensen, Tom Aindow, Simon French and Nick Lovering were second in a time of 54:26 beating City of Bristol in class by nearly two minutes. They might have been faster but for a technical problem when Tom's footplate slipped forward altering his technique.

 

Fastest coxed four of the day was the Totnes veteran D crew of Nick Price, Mick Rolley, Alan Langmaid, Steve Lamkin and coxed by Steve Grimes. Rowing down two age categories at vet B they came in fifth overall in a time of 56:43 after overtaking rivals Dartmouth a mile from the start and the scratch Totnes senior B crew a mile and a half from the finish. This senior B crew of Owen Small, Steve Wilson, Matt Grace and Ed Pettinger, coxed by Louis Van Diggele were the only entries in class and completed the course in 59:51. An all Totnes dual developed between open double scull crews with John Harris and Colin Souch just beating Gary Cairns and John Poland by eight seconds in 58:38, the result likely to be determined by navigational competence as much as rowing skills. They in turn were beaten by Westover Bournmouth rowing club with Bradford on Avon second.

 

Veteran sculler Pete Atkinson excelled again by rowing down two ages groups and winning the vet B single race coming home in an hour and 23 seconds, a little over a minute slower than the fastest sculler from Pangbourne in the elite class. This was still faster than the Totnes ladies open eight crew of Laura Hutchinson, Jan Woodruff, Lucy Obelensky, Kate Purver, Emily Palmer, Jess Carter, Maya Maloney, Georgie Cleesby and coxed by Pete Knapman. Another winner for Totnes was Suzanne Hutchings in the ladies open single sculls in 1:07:27. Adam Dyer did the same for Totnes in the senior C single sculls race in 1:11:45. Totnes veteran single scullers Rob Brereton and Simon Gifford-Mead had their own dual with Rob qualifying as a vet E sculler and Simon at the older F category reflected in the times of 1:15:43 and 1:21:06 respectively.

 

There were no records broken this year unsurprisingly with such a headwind, but it was incident free and sunny even if the water was a little choppy.

 

 

Alan Langmaid, PR and vice-chairman, Dart-Totnes ARC.