Our Wednesday racing time has been announced.
10:20am Henley Royal Regatta time, or 5:20 Eastern Standard time, USA. Again, We will be racing against the University of Edinburgh.
Listen to the race live, here: http://www.regattaradio.co.uk/listen-live/
Live results will be posted here: http://www.hrr.co.uk/results/live/stream/
And don't forget to follow Bowdoin Rowing's twitter, either! https://twitter.com/bowdoinrowing
Sunday, 30 June 2013
A Day in the Life
Well, our trip started ten days ago, but we definitely haven't spent the past 240 hours solely eating, sleeping and rowing, so what have we been doing?
We have been enjoying the sun! The weather here has been beautiful all week, and we have taken advantage of it. Our wonderful hosts, the Brassey family, have granted us use of their beautiful house and grounds. Quite often, we will enjoy our lunch and dinner outside in the yard. Mark, occasionally joined by Trevor, Cal, and/or Jen has been swimming in the pool daily. Coachie and Edie have been taking many walks enjoying the numerous footpaths and trails offered by Henley and the surrounding towns. Tucker and Mark have been enjoying some of the local tea shops and have spent some time reading while enjoying tea and pastries. Cal has been relaxing and reading up a storm in the house. And for a little friendly competition, we have all been challenging each other to countless rounds of foosball.
Monday was our first day on the River. The Thames River is perpetually beautiful. On Monday, we had the river mostly to ourselves, but it has been getting progressively more crowded with other boats as teams have arrived over the course of the week. The boat tent, has slowly filled with both boats and people. We have watched the preparations for the regatta appear up all week. More tents and stands have sprung from the ground every day, and there is barely any uncovered ground left. It is becoming more and more apparent that the regatta is almost here! Boats have begun arriving and claiming mooring spots alongside the course. Today, the queen's magnificently ornate boat, Gloriana, moored itself alongside the course, and we couldn't help but get a picture.
On Friday, Coachie took us on an excursion through woods and fields, over hills, and across the Thames. After a lunch at the Flower Pot, we returned to the race course to watch the qualifying races.
Last night, we had a friendly game of whiffle ball at the town park, which was a fun way to spend our Saturday evening.
We have been enjoying the sun! The weather here has been beautiful all week, and we have taken advantage of it. Our wonderful hosts, the Brassey family, have granted us use of their beautiful house and grounds. Quite often, we will enjoy our lunch and dinner outside in the yard. Mark, occasionally joined by Trevor, Cal, and/or Jen has been swimming in the pool daily. Coachie and Edie have been taking many walks enjoying the numerous footpaths and trails offered by Henley and the surrounding towns. Tucker and Mark have been enjoying some of the local tea shops and have spent some time reading while enjoying tea and pastries. Cal has been relaxing and reading up a storm in the house. And for a little friendly competition, we have all been challenging each other to countless rounds of foosball.
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| Our Wonderful Cook and company! |
A little more about the house. We mostly seclude ourselves to the glassed-in conservatory, which has a few couches and our dinner table. The other room in the house that we frequent is our bedroom, which is essentially the attic, and has enough mattresses for the lot of us.
Monday was our first day on the River. The Thames River is perpetually beautiful. On Monday, we had the river mostly to ourselves, but it has been getting progressively more crowded with other boats as teams have arrived over the course of the week. The boat tent, has slowly filled with both boats and people. We have watched the preparations for the regatta appear up all week. More tents and stands have sprung from the ground every day, and there is barely any uncovered ground left. It is becoming more and more apparent that the regatta is almost here! Boats have begun arriving and claiming mooring spots alongside the course. Today, the queen's magnificently ornate boat, Gloriana, moored itself alongside the course, and we couldn't help but get a picture.
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| Coachie doing his thing from a perch |
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| Her Majesty The Queen's boat, Gloriana |
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| The Gladiator field (not really, but we like to pretend we were in the movie...) |
Saturday, 29 June 2013
The Draw
The Draw for the Regatta was today! We were delighted to find out that we were chosen as one of the six Select Crews in the field of sixteen for the Prince Albert Challenge Cup. We will be racing the University of Edinburgh in the opening round of racing on Wednesday.
Race times will be available Sunday night at hrr.co.uk.
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| The Draw being held in the beautiful Henley Town Hall |
To see the full official bracket, visit the HRR site here:
http://www.hrr.co.uk/fs/downloads/HRR_Draw_2013.pdfRace times will be available Sunday night at hrr.co.uk.
Monday, 24 June 2013
We're In!!!
Possibly the most exciting part of our third day in England was finding out that:
Yes, the Bowdoin men will officially be competing in the Prince Albert Challenge Cup. What does this mean for us? It means that the for next week, instead of worrying about Friday's qualifier, we will be practicing daily on the Thames river with our sole focus being on our first race which will now be July 3rd.
But besides that, we had a wonderful time traveling around London! We left by train From Henley on Thames bound for Paddington station at 10 this morning. We split into multiple groups for the early afternoon. Coachie, Edie and Cal went off to do some shopping and dining, while Tucker, Trevor, Chris, Jen and Mark made their way through London. At just before 2, the lot of us met at the Coat & Badge, a wonderful little pub nestled just along the Thames River, in the heart of London. The Coat and Badge is just next to the Putney Bridge, the start of the Oxford Cambridge Boat Race. There, we found out through what little Wi-Fi we could scrounge that we had been waived through the qualifier. We were then able to celebrate with some wonderful London Bowdoin Alumni who had come to join us in enjoying some heavy hors d'oeuvres.
WE HAVE MADE IT THROUGH THE QUALIFIER!!!!!
Yes, the Bowdoin men will officially be competing in the Prince Albert Challenge Cup. What does this mean for us? It means that the for next week, instead of worrying about Friday's qualifier, we will be practicing daily on the Thames river with our sole focus being on our first race which will now be July 3rd.
But besides that, we had a wonderful time traveling around London! We left by train From Henley on Thames bound for Paddington station at 10 this morning. We split into multiple groups for the early afternoon. Coachie, Edie and Cal went off to do some shopping and dining, while Tucker, Trevor, Chris, Jen and Mark made their way through London. At just before 2, the lot of us met at the Coat & Badge, a wonderful little pub nestled just along the Thames River, in the heart of London. The Coat and Badge is just next to the Putney Bridge, the start of the Oxford Cambridge Boat Race. There, we found out through what little Wi-Fi we could scrounge that we had been waived through the qualifier. We were then able to celebrate with some wonderful London Bowdoin Alumni who had come to join us in enjoying some heavy hors d'oeuvres.
Afterwards, Coachie and Edie headed back to Henley, while the boat wandered around London. We took the Overground rather than more of the Underground (which I've been told is a very Londoner thing to do, although we did have the help of a couple Bowdoin alumns...), stopping at Waterloo station, a block or so from The Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and the London Eye.
We ended our adventures in London by walking down the mall to Buckingham Palace, and were able to see the guards ornate in their solid-gold embroidered coats and bear-skin hats. Sadly, we then had to bring our adventures to an end so that we could be sure to catch the 7:40 train back to Henley on Thames.
Saturday, 22 June 2013
We've made it to England!!!
After our last practice on the New Meadows River Thursday morning, we all went our separate ways to finish our final preparations for our Journey. We met back up at Logan Airport in Boston at precisely 4:30, though, Chris and Trevor did their best to test the limits of this deadline and arrived at 4:29. After a brief dinner in the airport, we departed for England.
On our walk, we visited the beautiful race Headquarters, which has a boat slip running right into the boathouse. The Henley Women's Regatta is currently in full-swing, and we watched many powerful women's crews make their way down the course.
After a wonderful dinner prepared by Edie, we meandered around Henley before heading home for a long, long sleep.
6 hours and five time zones later we were in Heathrow and slowly making our way through customs. Not one of us had slept for more than a few minutes on the plane. At 8:00 am (or 3:00 in the morning for us), we got on a minibus and headed for Henley on Thames. Most of us did not enjoy the scenery as much as we may have liked...
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| Cal Was a little tired... |
When we finally pulled into Henley, we crossed the River Thames and caught our first glimpse of the racecourse. We arrived at our Beautiful homestay, unpacked and headed into town for a walk down the river.
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| Henley Regatta Race Headquarters |
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| Our first glimpse of the course |
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| Looking down the course from the finish |
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| Watching a Women's race from the end of the island as they pass the Temple |
After a wonderful dinner prepared by Edie, we meandered around Henley before heading home for a long, long sleep.
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