by Lauren Stevenson
The first race for UYBC was held on Sunday 20th November in York, where we were racing at the Annual York Small Boats event.
On a very grey and misty morning the first and second coxed men’s IVs for the university put in some very notable results. The first four, consisting of captain Sam Agass, second year Edward Scobie and freshers Matt Bowman and Tom Eames along with cox Eden Sparke posted the 4th quickest time of the day and in the process won their respective boat class by the resounding margin of 21.7 seconds over the 3km course with a time of 10:46.2.
The second IV of Richard Nixon, Paul Lloyd, Matt Harris, Will Fane-Gladwin and cox Alice Farley recorded the second fastest coxed four time of the day and came 12th on the day with 11:07.9, beating a strong Leeds university crew by 3.5 seconds.
All of the other crews on the day posted some very impressive results. In the women’s coxed IVs UYBC was placed 3rd in both of their divisions, with Anna Lavelle, Pippa Maloney, Catherine Oliver, Laura MacFarlane, coxed by Ellie Cooper, securing the fastest women’s time for UYBC of 13.27 seconds.
On the 27th November UYBC travelled to Hull to compete in the Yorkshire region BUCS indoor rowing Championship. This was a race over 2km on the rowing machine, testing your physical and mental capacity to the maximum.
This was the first opportunity for the new novice men and women to see how far they had progressed since the start of term. In the senior squads there were again some very impressive results. Senior men’s captain Sam Agass finished 2nd out of 79 other Heavyweight Males with a time of 6:20.0. The senior women’s relay team, Pippa Maloney, Natasha Linyard-Tough, Eloisa Cackett and Laura Macfarlane, won their relay with a time of 7.11. Natasha also came 2nd in the Lightweight Women’s division with a time of 8.27 minutes, so all of the competing senior women left with a medal.