Henley Women's Regatta 2008:

After having such a successful blade-filled season, the Magdalene girls had much to be confident about going into Henley. The more immediate run-up was however much less ideal; many of us turning up at the boathouse with no idea that our stroke and faithful captain, Jenny B, had been told by the doctor that her chest infection meant that she could not, and should not, row. This of course threw Jenny and Susannah into uproar as they searched high and low for a happy replacement, and they finally stumbled upon Pippa from New Hall who was perfectly willing to take the empty seat in such a reputable boat. Of course we were all apprehensive about losing our “Captain Doom”, but after a few more hours of faff and a long drive, we were all at Henley, happy as Larry, having a nice free meal in a warm pub and knowing that we still had a very important job to do.
 
Qualifiers:
 
The following morning, after having soaked up a bit of the Henley regatta atmosphere, we all knew how badly we wanted to qualify. The time trial would be tough seeing as we hadn’t managed to squeeze in an outing since Pippa had arrived so it would be our first row as a crew. But we did it! Lining up at the start we knew we had a chance against a lot of the crews out there, and we gained in confidence as we got into our rhythm and passed a very vocal Jenny on the bank. It didn’t feel perfect, but it didn’t feel bad at all, and we knew we’d done a good job and could really go for it in our first round later on that day.
 
1st Round:
 
When we were randomly drawn up against the ladies from Southampton Uni we knew it would be a good fight to the finish. This it certainly was, and after a terrible first 200 metres we started clawing back into them with our handy bumps fitness. Hearing Hamersley willing us on from the bank about 200 metres from the finish line, we dug deep, but just didn’t quite have enough room. We’d lost, but only by a very reputable third of a length. We’d given all the spectators a very close race, and on getting back to camp we discovered that the very tall and smiley Sir Matthew Pinsent had been in our launch boat watching us! We could all enjoy the rest of Henley Women’s Regatta proud to have put up a good fight.

Written by Rachel Rose Smith