Walton and Weybridge Regatta

By way of a change, Henley Rowing Club athletes got to compete at a traditional river regatta last weekend when crews raced at Walton and Weybridge Regatta over a 1,000m two-lane side-by-side course.

First up was the J15 double of Sebastian Lee and Franco Bigmore Wallace. They eased into their final with wins over local crews from Walton and St George’s College. In the final they raced against Walbrook Rowing Club winning by five lengths.

Next up was the J14 quad of Noah Cottam, Rohan Shanker, Henry Featherstone, Charlie Chapman and cox Aryaveer Kotwal.

They raced against Walton and Molesey Boat Club in the heats to meet Weybridge in the final. This proved to be a close race with the lead changing hands several times in the closing stages of the race with the Henley crew narrowly losing by three feet. Harrison Bartels-Thiel was competing in his first regatta in the J16 single. After some steering challenges Harrison stormed to victory in the semi-final against a sculler from St George’s College. In the final he beat the sculler from Walton by two lengths.

The afternoon racing saw Diego Petrosillo and Miley Vann compete in the J15 single sculls. They were on opposite sides of the draw and raced well to meet each other in the final. In a close race, Vann came out on top, beating Petrosillo by one-and-a-half lengths.

The final boys’ crew racing was the J15 quad of Ollie Rowley, Miley Vann, James Weeks, Samuel Byerley and cox Emma Grout. They beat Guildford in the semi-final to set up a final against Barn Elms, which the Henley crew won by one-and-three-quarter lengths.

For the girls Emily Robinson and Erin Goodall competed in the U15 double sculls. In the first round they comfortably beat a crew from Molesey by five lengths, in the semi-final they had a closer race securing the win over St George’s college by one-and-a-quarter lengths to proceed to the final where they beat another Molesey crew by two lengths.