The story of the event is shown in the five short videos below:

Div 7 K2 Start. video link BCCC had two boats in this race. Nick Howarth and Alex Christie had been promoted from Div 9 to Div 7 at our own Hasler so decided to race their first Div 7 race in K2 – particularly as it would help gain good points for the club as K2 races tend to have fewer entries than K1. Tina Looi’s normal K2 partner was not available so she teamed up with Mike Oliver. In the video Tina and Mike are on the far bank and Nick and Alex two boats in from them. We will have to await the final results to see if there have been any promotions in this class. However, given the time lost in the rescue it is unlikely.

Div 7 K2 Leading 3 boats. video link When the Div 7 K2s returned after the turn, both BCCC K2s were in the leading three boats. However, after Caversham Bridge they came across a K1 vertical in the water and their race stopped as they went to the assistance of the capsized paddler. This totally disrupted their race and eventually Mike and Tina crossed the finish line in first place with Nick and Alex 2nd. However, they were placed in equal first place with a time of 43’ 25” in the final results with the crew from Southampton who had also stopped to assist. Nick and Alex were placed 3rd one second behind. Mike and Tina earned 50 points each and Nick and Alex earned 48 points each

Div 8 K1 Start. video link David Bales was representing BCCC in this race. After a steady start he was able to overtake a few crews before finishing in 10th place out of 17 boats in a time of 49’ 42” and earning 45 Hasler points

Div 9 K1 Start. video link Zoe Griffiths was racing her own boat instead of the club Laance that she had used at our Hasler where she had been the first paddler not promoted. She was a bit wary at the start and just wanted to stay out of trouble so took it very steadily. In the end she came 11th out of 25 boats in a time of 51’ 42” earning 43 Hasler points

GS C K1 Start. video link Harry Steel was taking part in his first race in the Geoff Sanders Trophy K1 C class for Under 12s. As the start was combined with the B class for Under 14s he was up against some older opposition who were also in faster kayaks than his Lightning so did extremely well to come second in his GS C class in a time of 29’ 34”. GS C K1 Harry Steele. video link This shows Harry coming back passed the start after the turn and clearly enjoying his 4km paddle on the Thames

Hasler Qualifying. Despite only having 8 adult paddlers, BCCC still managed to earn a total of 332 points placing the club 5th in the Southern Region league table for the race being beaten, yet again, by Reading (600 points – the maximum!), Oxford (587 points), Banbury (557 points and Southampton (415 points). Newbury CC came 6th only one point behind us. As the points scored by the 12 highest scoring paddlers from a club count towards the position in the regional league table, it would have been possible to have beaten Southampton if we had another 4 paddlers who had scored approx. 40+ points each. This could have been easily achieved by a couple of Div 9 K2s as there were only two boats in the race and one did not score any Hasler points as it was from outside the region.

D HOWIE
Race Captain