Inverness Rowing Club oarsman Alan Sinclair was a member of the Aberdeen Boat Club coxed four along with Colin Williamson, Ross Cruikshank, Dave McNeill (stroke) and Meadbh Boyle (cox) which took part in the Britannia Challenge Cup at Henley Royal Regatta last week.
Wednesday's first round race was against a crew from City of Oxford Rowing Club in which the Aberdeen crew had an extremely close encounter over the 2112 metre course. Trailing the faster starting Oxford crew for the first part of the course, the Aberdeen crew pressed on strongly to overtake their opponents by the mile post and then surge ahead to win by a comfortable margin of almost three lengths.
In their quarter final, they led their opponents from Lea Rowing Club by 1 & 1/4 lengths at the Barrier and increased their lead to 1 & 3/4 lengths at the finish post.
Their semi-final opponents from the Army Rowing took an early lead off the start and although Aberdeen challenged strongly all the way down the course, the Army emerged winners by just over one length and later won the final of the Britannia Challenge Cup on the Sunday beating York City Rowing Club by approximately two lengths.
The Aberdeen crew produced fine performances in all three of their races and now will concentrate their efforts on the coxed four event at the UK National Championships to be held at Strathclyde Park near Hamilton in just over a weeks time.
This coming weekend sees another three Inverness oarspeople competing at Henley when Hazel Smith is a member of Double Sculling crews at the Henley Masters Regatta with high hopes of achieving medal success.