Wee sleekit, cow’rin, tim’rous beastie (Anne F)
Day two of the Worlds brought with it sunshine and showers and a very close day. And mice! I shall come back to the mice later.
We brought the boat down to the water from the overnight compound after emptying it of the water which had accumulated overnight. The first race up was the Men’s 40+ at 0940 with a crew of Dónal, Gabe, Ben and Stevie Watson, ably coxed by Rory. After a vigorous warm up we were ready to go and were going from the middle of the course in lane nine. We had a great start and made good progress up the course flanked by two Irish clubs of Killyleagh and Strangford. At the turn we got around the buoy very well and raced for home. We had made up a length on Collieston and were looking good to get in to the top 6.
We rowed hard but were overhauled by Collieston coming towards the end. In the end it didn’t matter so much as we were fith in a time of 11:51 and had made the repechage so we lived to fight another day.
The next up was the Women’s 40+ and hopes were high that they could at least make the repechage. The crew consisted of Julie, Val, Lorna and Tracey, with Keith as the Cox. They got off to a fantastic start as they were neck and neck with Golspie. Things took a turn for the worse as there was a slight coming together between Queensferry and Golspie with the Umpire having to intervene. Queensferry were not to be perturbed though and they soldiered on around the buoy and back to the finish. Try as they might they just failed to reach the repechage, finishing in 7th place.
The following race was the 50+ Mixed with Rory, Donna, Sharon and Graeme with Rachel as Cox. Rory was making his comeback on a full course after his accident in the Autumn. They tried very hard but unfortunately, they were unable to qualify for the repechage as they finished 9th
The Men’s repechage was at 1440 and we were raring to go with Killyleagh on one side of us and Lake Champlain on the other side. We got off to a flying start and were well in the mix all the way up to the buoy, however it all went a bit wrong at the buoy turn as stroke lost his oar but managed to get it back on the pin within two strokes. It lost us five seconds though which we were going to have difficulty overhauling. Unfortunately we finished 12th of 12 boats, just behind Renegade and Gourdon. We don’t know what time we finished at as for some strange reason the umpires had ourselves and Renegade as DNS. Hopefully that will be rectified on Wednesday.
Queensferry Rowing Club did have some success; our U12s won something for us as Georgina, Sioned and Cameron won the Duck Dash, well done to the youngsters. There was another competition of Duck Sandcastle in which Georgina, Sioned and Cameron made a wonderful sandcastle incorporating a massive inflatable duck. We are still waiting on the results of that.
Now back to the mice!
Anne Flannery is camping in Portpatrick and came to Stranraer complaining that she didn’t sleep well at all last night. The main culprit being movement under her groundsheet during the night. She could hear a scrabbling under the groundsheet, and it was giving her a free massage at the same time (some might say that the earth moved for Anne that night!). When Anne returned to the campsite, she was greeted by a family of field mice waiting for her. The last we heard was that Anne was redesigning her tent interior to accommodate her house guests.
Report by Dónal.