Monmouth Rowing Club

Established 1929

19 WINS FOR MONMOUTH CLUBS AT REGATTA

Regatta report by Nick Hartland (contact Nick for pictures)

JUNE 1: WYE rowers made a big splash at their own Monmouth Regatta, racking up 19 wins among its two clubs and three schools. The 80th-anniversary Monmouthshire Building Society-sponsored event saw 436 boats from 41 clubs launch out in tough headwind conditions, with the second day's racing reduced from 1500m to 750m.

Monmouth Comprehensive School were in 11th heaven after scoring that many wins at the first day's sprint event, while Monmouth School's alumni club Old Monmothians took four trophies, including the feature race, the Phil Mathew Memorial 8s in honour of the late regatta commentator and teacher.

The OMs crew included British men's champion Alex Butler, plus former Wales Home Countries champions Huw Richards and Rob Tod, and accounted for Ross' British veteran champion medallists by just over a length in their opening heat. In the final it was sweet revenge for defeat in 2010 when the old boys overhauled Monmouth RC's British veteran champion crew in the last 250m to take victory by half a length.

The OMs' guest rower, Turkish international Murat Demircan, also featured in the winning quadruple scull with Matthew Richardson and Monmouth RC junior twins, Stephen and Tom Griffiths, who beat Bristol City by 4L, while Butler teamed up with James Knight to take the veteran doubles by 3.5L from Staines.

 The Comprehensive School's hatful of wins included three quad scull triumphs, with U18 outfit Jed Tattersdill, Richard Russell-Broome, David Harris and Alex Eldridge-Tull seeing off Birmingham by 4L, girls' U15 coxed crew Kathleen Elverson, Kate Gillespie, Evie Clarke, Isobel Shan and Sam Royston taking down Swansea easily, and U14 boys Charlie Burge, Ashley James, Joe Hopkins, Ross McCoard and cox Beth Lloyd doing the same to Cardiff City.  Their four double scull victories saw U16 boys duo Cole Telford and Alex Thomas see off a pair of their own club rivals by 2L, U16 girls Annie James and Melissa Pearce squeeze home against Swansea by 1/2L, U15s Holly Smith and Ella Phillips pip Staines by 1L, while U14s Briony Waycott and Bethan King also accounted for the Thames outfit, this time by 2L. And completing their impressive haul were single scullers Joe Warmington who took men's IM3 singles comfortably from his Swansea opponent, David Harris who held off schoolmate Broome-Harris by 2.5L in U18s, Jed Tattersdill a 4L conqueror of Birmingham in the U16 event, and U15 girls' winner Meagan Sturgess, who cruised home from Llandaff.

The dusk dash for a barrel of beer once again proved a highly popular end to the first day's racing with eight clubs entering 8s to race over 500m in three-lane order. And it was Reading University who held on to win the final by half a length from Leicester students De Montfort.

With the wind roughing up the water above Dixton Church, it was decided to hold day two's racing over the sprint regatta's 750m course again, but conditions were still very challenging with blades regularly clipping the waves and crews and scullers suffering the odd shipwreck. But organisers kept racing to time, no mean feat considering there were 317 races over the weekend.

Day two saw five wins for local crews, with both Monmouth School and the girls of Haberdashers returning from the National Schools Championships at Nottingham to try their luck. The boys eight beat Bristol City in their semi, then Stourport by 3L to take the men's IM3 event, but their four lost out in the final of the men's novice event to Cardiff University. Habs' Emily Rosser had too much for her Wallingford opponent in the final of the U15 singles event, while Carys Major won by 3L in the U14 final from schoolmate Amelia Baldwin.

Alex Butler, James Knight and the Griffiths twins were too hot for Birmingham again in the men's quads final, cruising in 4L to the good, while Monmouth RC's James Allison, Nick Hartland, Dave Bowen and Mark Stewart-Woods warmed up for this weekend's British veteran championships by taking the top coxless fours event by a length from Bridgnorth.

Regatta spokesman Eric Froggatt said: "It was tough with the conditions, but the rowers made a really good fist of it and the event went off really well. It all comes down to a lot of hard work from our volunteers and we owe a big thanks to all our sponsors. "I think our event is right up there in terms of its organisation, facilities and friendliness and the fact that we got our second highest ever entry for our 80th anniversary proves its popularity."