South Coast Champs 3rd Sept 05

SOUTH COAST CHAMPIONSHIPS REGATTA, 3rd SEPTEMBER, 2005

The culmination of the Coastal Rowing season, the South Coast Rowing Championships, was held on Saturday, 3rd September, in gloriously sunny but difficult sea conditions, at Bexhill, East Sussex. Wightlink sponsored Ryde Rowing Club represented the Island with two crews selected to represent the Hants & Dorset Amateur Rowing Association which, includes the Isle of Wight and a further six crews involved in the open and invitation events.

The hi-light of the day for the Club was the dominating performance of their Men�s Junior Four consisting of Ben Churchill, Sam Cocker, Con and Christy Sullivan and coxed by Jodie Cocker. They took the lead early in their Championship event against the best crews from the Coast and West of England ARA and their lead was never seriously threatened as they eventually won by three clear lengths to be crowned Men�s Junior South Coast Rowing Champions.

The Clubs second representative crew of Stu Johnson, Ollie Bottrell, Nick Christopher, Ash Maitland and coxed by Kim Salter racing in the Men�s Junior Senior Championship event found the going a little tougher finishing in 3rd place behind Herne Bay and Bexhill.

In the Open and Invitation events the Ryde Crews produced some excellent performances - the best coming from their Junior Ladies B Crews of - Jodie Cocker, Chloe Attrill, Steph Goodey, Claire Salter and coxed by Matt Bull who also established an early lead that they held to the end against a large field of nine crews which included two other Ryde Crews. The C Crew of Emma Levison, Aimee Dibbens, Hayley Edwards and Rachael Whitmarsh finished 4th with the young A Crews of Sarah Lamb, Sophie Draper, Rachael Brimstone, Kim Salter and cox Jasmine Burr-Hersey struggling in the difficult conditions to finish some way down the field.

The Men�s Senior Crew of Matt Allsopp, Ben Ade, Mike Jenner and Ian Hayden, coxed by Catherine Hume on loan from BTC had a near disaster in the heat with Mike Jenner's seat collapsing just after the start to put them at the back of the field but in spite of this added complication they were able to pull through to finish in third place and qualify for the final where they performed well to finish in second place in a very close race.

The Clubs second Men�s Junior Senior Crew of Matt Bull, Matt Evans, Mike Palin and Lee Bennett and coxed by Jamie Lawson also performed well to finish in third place in their final.

Finally the young Men�s Novice Crew of Ian Dyer, James Eklund, Tom Clark, Jamie Lawson and cox Emily Walshaw from Christchurch rowed well to finish third in their heat to meet their target of qualification for the final where, racing against much older and larger opposition they did well to finish in 4th place.

The Clubs crews now take a brief and well earned break before the winter programme starts with the Itchen Imperial Junior Sprint Regatta, in Southampton on the 24th September.

The Ryde Clubs International oarsman, Simon Jones, has just finished competing at the World Rowing Championships in Gifu, Japan, where he stroked the GB Lightweight Coxless Four. The crew reached the semi-final, finishing second in their heat behind France, and beating the USA, the Netherlands and India. Although they were competitive for the first half of their semi-final on Friday, 2^nd September holding third position at 500m by the close, they had dropped back to fifth and were clearly heavily disappointed. They competed in the B Final on Sunday, 4^th September and surged through the final 100m to seize second place behind South Africa and eighth place overall.

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