Day two of the Henley Women’s Regatta looked a lot different than yesterday, with yesterday’s raft of “Easily” margins giving way to a number of “1 foot” decisions. And this even in a formidable headwind that got strong enough by the end of the day to kick up some whitecaps on the course.
Early in the day, the Baldwin School quad had a spate of bad luck when they nicked a boom that caused a blade of one of the oarswomen to flip around backwards; she managed fully four strokes like this, but the crew’s bid to advance fell in the offing. At the other end of the day, the stroke of the Baldwin double had an interesting warmup routine, wherein she removed her glasses and slapped herself in the face. Perhaps she took a page out of the book of fellow Philadelphian in the Penn coxed four?
Three-seat of a quad had the entire race plan, along with a few general rowing tips, pinned to the back of her unisuit. Purdue kept their streak alive in the senior eight with a garrulous row down the course, where they gave it a nice hard pull despite a comfortable margin; they did the same yesterday. Many on the banks were impressed, with one noting “that is what we like to see, good hard rowing.”
Princeton’s 2V had a coxbox problem on the dock, which took less than five minutes to fix, but an official was offended enough to bellow that they were “ruining the entire regatta.” Another favorite go-to phrase: “you have already been told,” when of course no one had been told anything; when one official was asked where one was to get some specific information needed at the regatta site, he replied “I got this information by postal mail.” Very helpful chap.
The two British entries in the Elite 8 are (more or less) the selected U23 eight, and the U23 B eight. They do have a bit of American flavor in them, however, with a couple oarswomen who row at Virginia and Stanford, among others.
The Brown entry in the event is a group of ten 2011 seniors; another Brown alum was seen stroking a four from Edinboro; as Deb Dryer rowed past, she looked maybe a week older than her days at Brown, total flashback.
As row2k left the course last night, ambulances, fire trucks, and medivac helicopters were pouring into the regatta site; it turned out that a barge carrying tables and chairs for the regatta collided with a women’s four from Molesey, sinking the boat and sending the crew members into the water. One member of the crew dislocated her shoulder, and was in shock at the scene; she was helicoptered out, but reports indicate she is doing well enough, and suffered no other injuries.
In better launch news, the HWR folks brought out a 113-year-old coal-fired steam launch for the regatta (lots of photos of this one in the gallery); a crew of three runs the boat, including a coalman who stokes the fire – which is hot enough that they will occasionally brew the referees a cup of tea on top of the pit.
Folks stayed dry on the whole today, with only few flash showers on the day – although “racing was suspended” again today for three or four minutes when lightning cracked near the finish line. Folks up at the start were sitting in perfect sunshine watching the squall drench the finish line area; all in a June day’s weather in Henley.
It’s weather fit for a duck – and the ducks know it – one built itself a new home on a boom.
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