Durham Small Boats Head saw Tees RC take part in their first event of 2009. With the threat of bad weather having cast a doubt over whether the event would take place it came as a relief to find the event not only on but the water conditions very favourable and for most of the day the rain and snow held off.
The event is held over 1800m with four divisions taking place at two hour intervals. This allows for people to enter a number of different boat categories. Tees sent a large number of crews to compete across all four divisions. The veteran section of the club have started to scull a lot more this season especially after the club purchased a new coxless quad boat. A crew of Hilton Armstrong, Ian Burns, John Winton and Peter Hancock set off behind their main opposition from Hexham and rowed well to gradually reduce the gap over the 1800m course. They eventually won their event by 5 seconds in a time of 7:32.8.
There is another group of veterans who regularly use the tranquillity that the river brings at day break as a perfect opportunity for an outing. A number of them were competing in the veteran mixed doubles category and out of the two Tees crews entered it was the one of Richard Harandon and Janet Wilkinson that came out on top not only between the two but in the event. They came home in a time of 8:27.0 to win the event.
A number of the Tees Rowing Club men’s squad saw the four divisions as an ideal opportunity to get some race practice for the coming months of racing. The four consisting of Philip Gray, Rob Cree, Dan Graham and Darren Cooper raced in all four divisions in a mix of quads, doubles and singles. Dan Graham performed the best out of the singles coming home in a time of 7:49.9 to win the S3 single sculls event. The best result of the day however came in the S2 quad event where the four combined to produce the fastest time of the day out of all 399 boats entered. They came home in a time of 6:20.7 to win their event and the overall head.
Well done to all Tees crews on a good days racing and lets hope everyone can build on these performances as the season goes on.