Henley Women's Regatta was raced from Friday 19th to Sunday 22nd June over a slightly shorter version of the Henley Royal Regatta course. As Henley Royal Regatta offers few women's events, HWR is the pinnacle of the the year's rowing for many women's crews.

On route to the final of the Elite lightweight Double Sculls, Natalie Trinder and Vickie Sims had an exceptional scull in the semi-finals when drawn against the Durham University U23 GB crew of Fletcher and Steel. This was always going to be a tough race as Fletcher and Steel raced at the World U23's in 2007 and are currently the selected U23 double for this year's Worlds U23. Maidenhead Rowing Club led off the start and pulled out to a 3/4 length lead, but at halfway mark Durham pushed past Maidenhead to a half-length lead. At this stage Maidenhead dug deep and successfully responded by pushing back past Durham and moving out to a small lead. They maintained their lead to win by 3/4 of a length. This was an excellent club crew performance and should give Natalie Trinder and opportunity to compete for a seat at GB U23 level. Vickie misses out because she is over 23 but a great win for the athletes and club, full justification for a new lightweight double to enable the crew to compete at this level. In the final against Mortlake Anglian and Alpha, they fought hard but in a roaring head wind were not able to repeat the mornings performance.

In the School/Junior Single Sculls event, Ally Brooks won her first heat against Oakes of Warrington (junior GB sculler ranked No 3) by coming from 1.5 length down to draw level at halfway and then pushing through to a 2.5 lengths win. In the semi-final Brooks led a sculler from St Neots from the start and went on to a 3 length comfortable win. The final against Burgess of Star club (junior GB sculler ranked No2) was very tough, mainly to do with sculling upstream in a very strong head wind which proved very difficult for Brooks who is a lightweight. Burgess led from the end of the island and went on to win the final by 4 lengths.

In the Schools/Junior Double Sculls event, Aimee Campbell and Francesca Lovely, who have only been sculling in their double together for a couple of weeks, were sculling the course faster with every heat. They won their first heat comfortably, then in the semi-final they beat a Norwich School/Norwich Rowing Club composite by 3.5 lengths. Making the final was a great achievement, but in the final they could not match the pace of the Sir William Borlase double who went on to win by 4 lengths.

Gabby Watson and Fifi Bevan competed in the same event against Reading Rowing Club in their first round and, despite this double still only being WJ15s, they showed what potential they might have in a couple of years time as they beat Reading by 3 lengths. In their semi-final against Sir William Borlase, they pushed as hard as they could, but could not get on terms with this bigger and more experienced double who were the eventual winners of the event.

Aimee Broadbent teamed up with Maddie Reynolds - still both juniors - to compete in the Senior Women's Double. They were unfortunate to be drawn against the finalists in their heat and did not progress.

Former Maidenhead junior member Laurian Pepper, rowing in Elite Coxless Pairs, went on to win this event rowing for Loughborough University.

Louise Entwistle, also a former Maidenhead Junior, rowing for University of London, progressed through the draw but went out to the eventual winners in the semi-finals.

The Maidenhead Women's Coxed Four (Helen Stewart, Clare Wallace, Dominique Michaud and Hannah Moores, cox Charlotte Harford-Webb) were unfortunate to be drawn against Cambridge University (eventual semi-finalists) and went out in their heat by 3 lengths. They had a good row and considering they had a novice in the boat, this was an outstanding performance. The cox Charlotte was also excellent and really raised her performance steering an excellent course under pressure and considering she has only coxed the crew for a few weeks, this was outstanding!

An excellent demonstration of top club sculling from the women at Maidenhead RC.

Billy Brooks
Captain Juniors