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Ryde Club achieved two hat-tricks by winning two statuses in the third
Hants and Dorset head of the river race this spring at Southampton.
The Senior A coxed four and the Novice A coxed four
both achieved their third win in good style. In the first division, the senior line-up of
Pete Nevill, Ian Hayden, Nick Pike and Matt Allsopp with Clare Salter as cox were fourth
away in the timed race and initially lessened the distance between themselves and the lead
crews but let the advantage slip a little in the mid section of the race, rowing well
within themselves but perhaps not pushing as hard as the other boats.
However, in the last part of the race their strength
told and a good sprint towards the finish allowed them to pull back sufficiently to win
the status in a time of 17.20 minutes.
In the second division, the Novice A crew started
further down the field but powered their way past five other boats to win their status by
an impressive 30 seconds in a time of 19.03. The crew of Stewart Johnson, Nick
Christopher, Oliver Bottrell, and Steve Hunns look set to win their status early in the
summer regatta series to go up to Junior status.
In addition to these two wins, the club gained the
Aggregate trophy for the first time at this event by having the lowest time for three
crews. Helping the Senior A and Novice A in this was the Senior B crew of Ben Ade, Stephen
Salter, Steve Cook and Mick Jenner with Jodie Cocker coxing. They had the satisfaction of
overtaking two crews to come eleventh in the status in a time of 18.03 minutes.
The men's Novice B crew also had an excellent row in
which cox Jodie Cocker's skills were challenged when a crew refused to give way as they
should. Nevertheless, they overtook two other boats to achieve fourth place in a time of
20.36.
The junior senior crew competed in the first division,
too, in a scratch crew of Lee Bennett, Chris Walker, Matt Bull and Ashley Maitland ably
substituting for Mike Palin. At the moment Christchurch is dominating this status and took
the first place convincingly, but the Ryde crew had a positive row in third place.
Now the club awaits the regatta season which begins in
ernest in three weeks time.
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