SEHBC Season Report 2023-24

SEHBC Season report 23/24

2023-24 Committee
President - Toby Whitehead
Vice-President - Verity Black
Women’s Captain - Alex Wood
Men’s Captains - Lorenzo Usai, Cyril Schroeder
Vice-Captains - Frances Hand, Thomas Early
Captain of Coxes - James O’Neill
Secretary - Q Sun
Treasurer - Marcus Bugge
Water Safety Adviser - Fizza Zaidi
IT & Communications - Jack Gillespie
Social Secretaries - Hazel Wake, Zhuoxuan Li

The SEHBC year began, as always, with recruitment of our new intake of rowers, whilst our returning squad looked to hit the ground running with training. Plans were swiftly halted by the Isis flooding beginning from Week 2, continuing all the way through Michaelmas Term to Hilary Term, where we saw Boathouse Island flooded twice and Torpids cancelled. However, this did not stop SEHBC! The club took to the ergs and, in particular, the rowing tank at the Iffley Road Sports Centre, to teach our novice rowers and continue the development of our senior rowers. We benefited throughout this from our new weights gym, which was installed in the summer of 2023. Our coxes were also kept busy with a number of coxing workshops run by our captain of coxes, James O’Neill. The club worked particularly hard on integration of coxes this year, with many new coxes being previously experienced rowers. We successfully competed in New College Indoor Regatta and the novice Ergatta in Michaelmas Term and the Tug-of-War-pids hosted by Pembroke College in Hilary Term.

Away from Oxford, the senior women put in a fantastic performance at Quintin Head in London in January, despite the limited water training time that the conditions had allowed us. Meanwhile, our boatman Jim Ronaldson was completing the incredible feat of rowing the Atlantic with Ian Davies, setting a world record for oldest men’s pair to row across any ocean! Our OUBC triallists were successfully competing in Trial Eights in December, with 6 SEHBC athletes competing across the squads. This culminated in 4 SEHBC members competing in Boat Race Week. Adam Pattenden and Erika Dutton were both selected to row in the Lightweight Boat Races. Verity Black coxed the victorious womens spare four, with Toby Whitehead rowing in the men’s lightweight spare pair.

The end of Hilary Term brought a long anticipated return to rowing on the water for the first time since October! 25 of our members travelled to Cambridge for an incredibly successful training camp hosted by our sister college Fitzwilliam. For many of our rowers, this was their first time on the water, and the development in rowing technique and crew rowing across the camp was phenomenal, with 8 sessions organised over 72 hours! In Nottingham, Hazel Wake won the Championship Lightweight Single at the British University Championships in SEHBC colours. Five other SEHBC athletes also competed as part of OUBC, with some in their first race as part of this year’s development squad.

As Summer Eights approached, our crews were finally able to return to the Isis, with 3 men’s and 3 women’s crews able to train and qualify for bumps racing. The M3, made up primarily of finalists with exams around racing, were very successful with bumps on 3 out of 4 days, with one day of controversy preventing them from getting blades. The W3, made up entirely of new rowers, did incredibly well with a bump on day 1, before getting bumped on days 2 and 3 to go -1 overall. The W2 were perhaps the highlight of the week, going +3 across the week with ease. They are now very close to securing an automatic spot for bumps (avoiding the time trial to qualify) with one or two more years of bumping! The M2 started with some strong crews around them, but were resilient in the face of pressure, going -3 for the week.

The M1 began the week being bumped by Magdalen and University, but finished -2 overall with two incredibly strong rowovers on days 3 and 4, almost catching Balliol along boathouse island on the final day and providing the crowd with something to cheer! The W1 started the week 2nd on the river, their highest position since attaining headship in 2009. Bumps by University, Wadham and Pembroke to go -3 overall should take nothing away from the strength of this crew, who demonstrated incredible speed in a closely contested rowover on Day 2. They remain within reach of the coveted headship of Summer Eights. SEHBC once again hosted a highly successful charity BBQ on the Saturday of Summer Eights in aid of Bone Cancer Research Trust, in memory of SEHBC rower Matt Greenwood.

Thanks are due to many people for the successes of SEHBC this year. The captains - Alex Wood, Lorenzo Usai, Cyril Schroeder - as well as the whole SEHBC committee without whom the club would simply be unable to function. Claire Nichols, our senior member, and Mark Blandford-Baker, who have been fantastic with their advice and assistance to the club across the year. The Friends of SEHBC, whose donations provide the high standard of coaching and equipment which ensures the club remains one of the best college boat clubs in Oxford. SEHBC will continue to go from strength to strength in future years.