Henley Women's Regatta

There are a few gaps on my trophy shelf, however one gap has been particularly bothering me.  I had never won Henley Women's Regatta.  I know this sounds silly when I have yet to win a Senior World Champs or even a Henley Royal but it was almost getting embarrasing that I couldn't say that I was a HWR champ.  At one point during the week I thought I was going to have to wait yet another year.  The river was extremeley high and there were some hideous winds that almost forced the regatta to cancel.  The regatta organisers did a fantastic job to keep it running despite the conditions and although there were no record times set, finals day on Sunday turned out to be a great day.

All the pink ladies winning at HWR

Myself and Erica entered the elite doubles comepetition as our last racing before Europeans.  We also boated our Leander Henley Royal quad for the first time!
We had straight forward wins in both semi finals despite some hairy moments off the start in both boats.

E4x final

The final of the quads we raced Vesper USA.  We had a few steering warnings off the start so they just managed to slip ahead of us by the end of the island.  Once we had found our rhythm (and station!) we managed to sit ahead of them to the finish.  It was great racing the Henley stretch, I was loving the home advantage.  Once we got to the 1k mark, I thought 'we know it's 500m to go, they don't....bye bye!' Very satisfying!!
In the doubles final we raced Rowing Ireland.  This was Erica and I's 4th race of the day and we both were feeling it in the legs.  It was a solid win and good to get some last bit of racing in the doubles before we start our Europeans training.

E2x Final

E4x winners

E2x winners

It was so much fun to be racing multiple races and in crew boats, it's something I really miss when we are racing internationally.  We are now in the quad leading up to Henley Royal (27th-1st) it's a really exciting project and I can't wait to have a lot of fun with my fellow pink ladies.

Roll on Henley!!