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ST EDWARD’S CHRONICLE
Rowing
By Peter Rudge, Master i/c Rowing
Last year’s outstanding Fourth Form VIII
The 1st VIII after their victory over Hampton at Henley Royal Regatta
Henley Royal Regatta is always the focus of
the season for our boys’ 1st VIII. Last term
saw consistent development from the crew
enabling them to produce their strongest
performances of the year during Henley
week. An emphatic performance on the
Wednesday saw them despatch The King’s
School, Chester, before they faced Hampton
School on the Thursday. This proved a
superb race: Hampton had the edge on us
based on their performances throughout the
season but the boys raced with enormous
composure to preserve a narrow lead
throughout the cauldron of noise that is the
Henley course before drawing away in the
closing stages as Hampton’s belief cracked.
Such a performance under pressure was
inspirational to see. This hard-fought victory
put them through to a quarter final against
Eton on the Friday. The boys were unable to
live with the pace of the crew from Eton but
lost nothing in defeat to a crew who went on
to win the event. It was a very strong Henley
week from a crew who had also made the
Final of Championship Eights at National
Schools earlier in the term and showed once
again that St Edward’s can compete at the
highest level in school rowing.
The girls’ senior group spent the Summer
Term demonstrating just how far girls’ rowing
has developed. At National Schools they were
desperately unlucky to just miss out on the
final of Championship Eights by one place
but still produced the best ever performance
by a girls’ 1st VIII at the Regatta. They took
this form through to Women’s Henley
where, racing in a coxed four, they qualified
comfortably in the opening time trial, defeated
Haberdashers’ Monmouth in the second
round before racing with great determination
against Emanuel School in the quarter final.
They were unable to match the power of
the Emanuel crew but fought extremely hard
in defeat. Qualifying a girls’ quad for Henley
Royal Regatta is very much the target as girls’
rowing at St Edward’s continues to develop;
although the crew were unsuccessful this year,
they were very close. With three of the crew
returning this coming year it will be their main
focus throughout the season. For Tilly Catlin
(
Esher CofE High
) this was to be her last race in
St Edward’s colours, having played a huge role
in her crew’s success over the last two years.
Selected to race for England in the Home
Countries Regatta, she went on to win two
gold medals in both the four and the eight.
The younger squads within the boat
club also achieved their share of success
– there’s not enough space to detail them
all. A major highlight of the year was the
performance of the Fourth Form girls.
They became the first Fourth Form girls’
eight from St Edward’s to qualify for the
final at National Schools and fought so
hard to achieve their ranking of eighth in
the country. Our Fourth Form boys’ eight
raced at an extremely high level all year and
were desperately unlucky to just miss out
on the final at the National Schools Regatta.
The final highlight to mention must be the
performance of our boys’ Shell B crew
who became the first B J14 octo to reach
the national final. They raced superbly
throughout the early rounds and were in
contention for a medal in the final until an
unlucky mistake pushed them back with
around 200m to go. A national ranking of
sixth place is a great achievement and they
should be very proud to achieve something
that has not been done by a St Edward’s
Shell B octo before.
With plenty of wins during the season
for both our girls’ and boys’ Shell A and
B crews, and two extremely fast Fourth
Form eights who were successful at
national level, the boat club is in great
health throughout the School and there is a
great deal of promise for the year to come.