Mens 8+, Greg Searle, Mo Sbihi, James Foad
Mens 2-, Andrew Hodge
Mens 2-, Cam Nichol
Injured, Tom James, Tom Ransley, Peter Marsland

Despite FISA's attempts to ruin one of the most beautiful lakes on the international scene, 5 Molesey men were competing at the wonderful setting in Slovenia. 

The Head of the River.

MBC 1st VIII

The prestigious national rowing event, which has eluded Molesey Boat Club for over 18 years. 18 years?! A club like ours with a prolific and richly veined history, 18 years without winning this event is far too long. It’s an eternity.

If there was ever a year to win the event, it would be this year. It had to be now. It needed a committed Molesey crew, which is fired up in seeing the club become Number 1 in the country once again. Many of us had been gossiping of the line-up and the prospects of the race for months...secretly we knew this was the year and such an opportunity should not be wasted.

The crew assembled after our release from the delights of Caversham and initial training session went well. Even if we didn’t actually train in our full line-up for all sessions, we made it our mission to keep the key things the same. The following 8days were set and planned, with a full weeks training and fixtures against both Oxford and Cambridge on the schedule, all was looking good for the crew to gel and create some cohesion within the boat.

A couple of days positive training in the bag, bought us to an official fixture with the Cambridge blue boat. A positive start to the campaign saw us hold the Cambridge crew around the outside of the Fulham bend increasing to ¾ of a length by Harrods. After a brief break both crews realigned around Chiswick Eyot. Once again we were left battling around the outside of the bend against a Cambridge crew with a reasonably strong race pace (which won some of us guys a little bit of money with our inside info), however by Barnes we had established a comfortable lead, extending to two lengths by the finish.

A couple more days of solid training mixed in with a cheeky basketball session, set us up for the remaining week. With Smithy away for his exams, and Tom Solesbury out with a minor injury, we didn’t actually paddle in full race crew until the Friday. With our race against Oxford being shortened to two 5-minute pieces, it was good practice to sharpen up and address any issues needed before the weekend. Oxford, with a cocky cox, showed not to be a match for our start or race pace and once again, felt like we toyed with the crew rather than destroying their hopes before their own race.

The race itself was nothing special...it may be funny for people to read that, but it honestly wasn’t. Special indicates we had a something special in our race, but we rowed as hard as we could from A to B without changing what we had set in the last 7days. The end product was special, but the rowing itself was doing what we had become good at, without trying to do something spectacular. The key was to hit our rhythm without wasting too much energy and being in our own race. We held back at the start to not be drawn into a head-to-head battle with Leander 2, with the aim to fulfil being in our own race. The rhythm was there, the battle cries were there but toned down from the previous two fixtures, (we realised our mission and all jokes had to be put aside now) and we were trucking. A cheeky little look up from most of our crew at Hammersmith Bridge (expectant for our secret sign) was the only distraction. We rowed without mistakes and obviously this was the key to our success.