Stakeboat Duty

A fantastic sunny day with wonderful races and the usual highs and lows at City of Oxford Royal Regatta - our home club's regatta.

Tom and Robbie won their first race against Falcon then narrowly lost their semi-final to Cambridge. They spent much of the rest of the day doing the stakeboats - holding boats in place for the start of the races. They wore their matching bright green Oxfam T-shirts and enjoyed every minute of it. Here Tom holds onto an Oxford Acadmicals eight as the race is about to start.

The 16 year old boys four raced as adults novices for the first time and won their event to cheers and applause. Novices no longer. As I passed their opposition's supporters I heard one complain "Beaten by kids again - second week running!'