Henley Winter Series 2024/25

If the pitch at Wembley Stadium is, "hallowed ground", then surely the Thames at Henley could be regarded as “hallowed water”, as the winter series time trials are on the world famous regatta course from Temple Island to the bridge. After 3 previous entries to participate in the Henley Winter Series, all subsequently nullified by dangerously high water levels, Bourne Water Dragons were finally able to compete on this world famous stretch of the river on November 10th and also be part of the armistice day remembrance which we normally conduct on home waters.

An early start on a cool cloudy wind-free Sunday morning saw a 'flotilla' of well occupied cars heading north for the 80 mile drive to Henley. Unfortunately, because of Covid, shingles and other health issues, we were more than one car load short of a full crew. No worries though as three very friendly and able members of Pink Champagne Dragon Boat Team, plus a lady member of Henley Dragons filled nearly all of the spare seats and we were good to go.

The Henley Winter Series is now established as a key part of competitive paddling for dragon boats, outriggers and paddle boards throughout the winter. For dragon boats, it is a time trial over a 7 kilometre course, downstream to Temple Island and back. The BWD team occupied a corner of the clubhouse at the Eyot Centre, (an old English word meaning, island in the river) waiting for the 'off', and displayed no nerves just a delight to be part of the occasion along with 6 other well established young, powerful and very competitive dragon boat teams, as well as a similar number of outrigger teams.

Our warm-up was along our usual lines but extended to carrying our boat to the slipway, warming up muscles we didn’t know we had! When eventually seated in our boat at the jetty we were delighted to find that the BWD fairy had placed a supply of jelly babies on each seat, which is the closest we get to performance-enhancing drugs! We were delighted to be first away just after the 2 minutes silence and were relieved to get to the bridge without one of the “serious” teams passing us but on the long haul down to the turning point we were overtaken by some very fast and powerful clubs. Whilst the sound we emitted was brief chit-chat, the overtaking boats seemed to specialise in grunting with very loud exhortations from their helms. Their drummers considerably blocking the dismal sound of our drum which was ineffectual although our drummer, CB, did her utmost to get some sound out of it. At the turn, our speed naturally dropped a bit, not so much through tiredness and stroke performance, but because we were paddling against the river flow. To give paddlers a short break and some recovery, Dave, our helm, called for one row to drop out at a time to refuel and have a very short break and this worked well.

We completed the 7 kilometer course in just over 50 minutes giving an average speed of just over 5 mph (4.4 knots) and even had enough energy to carry the boat out of the water and do a warm-down without falling over!

Perhaps leave the final word to the local newspaper, the Henley Herald:

“It was fabulous to see Bourne Water Dragons from Christchurch, Bournemouth paddle the race. A crew of cancer survivors and their supporters. Such an inspirational team.
They certainly did themselves proud”.