The final, yet most important regatta of the year for the University of York Boat Club senior men commenced on Wednesday, week 10 of summer term. They competed at Henley Royal Regatta, down south in the beautiful setting of Henley-on-Thames.
This is the most prestigious club regatta in the world with an illustrious history and allows some of the best crews from across the globe to compete side-by-side against one another along the 2,112-metre course.
For the first time in UYBC’s history, the senior men pre-qualified their entry into the Temple Challenge Cup, an event specifically for university 8s. This was a huge achievement in itself as from the 68 entries into the event, only 20 had pre-qualified and of those 20, only 8 of them where from the UK.
This solidified UYBCs growing reputation as one of the strongest rowing universities in the country and demonstrated how far it had come over this past academic year, where previously it had failed to qualify for the regatta in the past 6 years.
The other UK crews to pre-qualify included Durham, Newcastle, Oxford Brookes, Reading and Nottingham University; boat clubs with excellent and consistent results at BUCS Head and Regatta, not to mention domestic regattas. This again highlighted the achievement of UYBC pre-qualifying for this event along with these crews.
Like at Wimbledon, the regatta is set up as a knockout competition. Two crews race side-by-side against one another each day from Wednesday through to Sunday, with the victor progressing into the next day of racing and the loser having to go home.
UYBC had ambitions to make it through a few rounds, yet this was dependent on whom they were drawn up against in the competition. This happened to be Harvard University ‘A’ crew. Harvard University have one of the richest traditions of rowing success and each year bring crews over to Henley Royal Regatta aiming to, and usually succeeding in, winning the event.
The race was scheduled for 3:35pm on Wednesday 27th June. York was drawn on the Berk station, the side nearest to the riverbank, and Harvard the Bucks Station.
The marshal set off both crews, after about 20 strokes approaching the end of Temple Island, York had half a canvas lead over Harvard. By the end of the island Harvard had drawn level and coming to the quarter-mile post Harvard had only just gained half a lengths lead.
The first main marker along the course was the Barrier (situated 637m from the start line) and here Harvard had extended their lead to one length, in one of the fastest times of the day to this marker, just showing how hard York were pushing Harvard.
From the Barrier through to Fawley, the second main marker along the course, Harvard’s power and experience took over as they managed to increase their lead to 2.5 lengths and again reaching this point in a very impressive time.
However, York had not lost hope and pushed Harvard all the way down the course, coming through the Enclosures, with plenty of support for York, UYBC closed the margin down to 1.5 lengths and this is how it finished. Despite being knocked out, the crew had done themselves proud and had posted one of the fastest times of the day in the Temple Challenge Cup.
Senior Men’s captain Sam Agass commented on the race: “The guys gave it everything and I’m very proud of how we performed. We didn’t come away with the victory but coming up against Harvard University was always going to be tough.
“I think a lot of people were expecting it to be a walkover, which it very much wasn’t and if anything it demonstrated how much we’ve improved over this past year to really give Harvard a competitive race.
“The men’s squad is in a position now were it can really establish itself as one of the top rowing university’s in the country over the next few year but that wouldn’t of been possible if the guys and Alice had not of worked so hard and put so much effort into this year. They’ve really been a credit to York University Sport.”
York University crew vs Harvard University
Stroke to Bow: Harry Dorrance-King, Matt Bowman, Ed Scobie, Sam Agass, Tom Eames, Richard Nixon, Oli Woods, Bobby Weitzel.
Cox: Alice Farley
definitely best looking boat club at least