I was somehow convinced to jump into the crew of Wolfson first- and second-boat oarsmen entered into this year’s Head of the River Race. The regatta is a head race over the Championship Course on the London Tideway. It is the same 6.8 km stretch used in the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race (raced in the opposite direction) and is known to be gruelling.
The weather was grey and windy, prompting the organisers to delay the start by 30 minutes while they considered whether the course was safe to row. We did manage to squeeze the race in just before the gusts turned the river truly unnavigable. Battered by wind and waves, Wolfson finished the course in a respectable 20 minutes and 2 seconds. We had an exciting overtake on Wolfson College, Cambridge, just after Hammersmith Bridge, and finished the course three abreast, placing 189th overall out of 345 entrants.
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