Southcoast Junior Senoir Champions 1999 September

Ryde Rowing Clubs Junior Senior Crew of Dom Pivonka, Lee Morey, Chris Van Wk, Mark Young (Str) and Dave Hanson (Cox) have pulled off an unexpected and surprising win (unexpected and surprising to everyone but Ryde anyway!) in the Mens Junior Senior Championship Race at the Southcoast Championship Regatta - to become Junior Senior Champions of the South Coast.

Selected to be the Hants & Dorset Amateur Rowing Associations second representative crew, behind Hants & Dorset Champions - Vospers - in some what controversial circumstances they have more than justified their selection in what as a great day for the Hants & Dorset ARA who captured four of the five Championship events including the Bideford Bowl - for the Mens Senior Fours - for the first time in ten years.

The Championship Regatta was scheduled to be held at Swanage on Saturday, 18th September - but was postponed after gale force winds lashed the coastal town making rowing impossible. It was only marginally better on the Sunday - so the Regatta was switched to Poole Harbor - for the Championship events only - a great disappointment for the seven crews Ryde had entered for the open events.

However the weekend was salvaged by the Junior Senior Crews magnificent win - after the closest of races - with the three crews finishing within a canvas of each other and the first four crews within half a length. Indeed as the race ended no one seemed to know who had won - with the commentator originally believing Bideford Blues had won with Ryde back in third. After an agonizing wait the official verdict came through - Ryde by less than a canvas from Shoreham, with Bideford Blues third and Vospers - Hants & Dorset Champions in fourth. The win was all the more remarkable for the fact that the Ryde three mans seat had disintegrated after half the course and he had completed the race with only half the wheels on his seat!