The Autumn heads season moved up a gear as the 2022 Long Distance Sculling Series (LDS) got underway with the first of the six rounds hosted by Cambois Rowing Club on the River Wansbeck on Saturday, October 1st.
Windy conditions meant the course length being shortened from the originally advertised 2500 metres to avoid the worst of the waves approaching the finish.
The LDS Series is for sculling boats only – singles, doubles, quads and octuples (not all locations). They are open to all age groups and categories. There are prizes for winning crews in each competition and a Victor Ludorum for clubs over the series as a whole. See the LDS Series page on the Northern Rowing Council website for the schedule of dates for all rounds of the series.
There are associated but independent Small Boats Head (SBH) competitions with both sculling and sweep in the afternoon on four of the six days. Detais of these can be found on the host clubs’ web sites. The first was Wansbeck SBH.
Durham ARC had 17 entries for Wansbeck LDS and 12 for Wansbeck SBH. A successful day produced 5 wins in the LDS and 6 in the SBH. Single scullers did well with Jennifer Napora in the WJ18 1x, Michael Terry in the MasD 1x and Gabrielle Moore in the WMasF 1x all recording victories in the LDS, while Nick Baird won the Open 1x in both LDS and SBH competitions. Three crews from DARC contested the Women’s Masters quad race which resulted in a win for the WMasH 4x- – Lynn Pain, Hazel Stainforth, Corolyn Edwards and Caroline Scholl – against the WMasB and WMasE crews.
The Junior squad had a successful day in the SBH which included wins for the WJ18 4x- – Libby Morris, Orlagh Windle, Francesca Suggett and Tilly Stoddart – and some first competitive successes for Quinn and Jason in the J14 2x, Patrick and Owen in the J15 2x band 2, Becca and Issy in the WJ15 2x, and Sophie in the WJ15 1x.
See links to Wansbeck LDS results and Wansbeck SBH results for more details.
The heads season had opened well two weeks earlier on September 17th, with wins for DARC in five events at the Tyne Single Scullers Head (which despite its name includes single and double sculls and pairs), victories going to Will Terry in J16 1x band 1, Jennifer Napora in WJ18 1x band 2, Gabrielle Moore in WMasF 1x, Matthew Flatters in J17 2x and Gabrielle Moore and Angela Lund in WMasF 2x. Results from the four divisions are on the website, and photos are available from BertieShoots here.
The LDS Series continues with the next round being Tees LDS and SBH on Saturday, October 8th.