Inverness Rowing Club achieved success and many good performances at the two day Strathclyde Park Regatta in Hamilton last weekend in variable weather conditions.


In the difficult windy conditions on Saturday, a number of fine performances were achieved by Inverness crews in various events. Tom Baker and Alastair Duff raced in two double sculls events, achieving fifth and second places in Restricted 2 and Veteran events respectively. In Veteran single sculls, Hazel Geddes and Mary Clouston claimed second and third places respectively, whilst Geddes was joined by Hazel Smith, Katie Van Exan and Susanne Standish-Hunter in an exciting Veteran quad sculls event losing out by a narrow margin to a crew from Strathclyde Park RC. Juniors also produced some determined performances in the fickle windy conditions in Junior 13 double sculls when second place was achieved by the Meghan Hunter/Rachael Wells crew with the Jennifer Warwick/Sarah Cameron combination in fourth place. Colin Sinclair qualified in second place in his semi-final in Novice single sculls but just missed out on the bronze medal position in the final of this event. He also raced in the Mens Junior 18 single sculls finishing just outside the medal positions.


In the calmer conditions on the Sunday the Inverness younger junior squad members Sarah Cameron (bow), Jennifer Warwick, Rachael Wells, Meghan Hunter (stroke), and Adam Geddes (cox) excelled in the final of the junior 13 coxed quadruple sculls winning by several lengths over a crew from Aberdeen Schools Rowing Association. All five, plus Shaun Hunter took part in a variety of junior 12 and junior 13 single and double sculling events throughout the regatta with commendable performances in these events.


In single sculls, Alastair Duff achieved a fine second place finish in his Veteran single sculls event.John Sharkey finished strongly in the Veteran single sculls event with a similarly impressive performance being produced by Mary Clouston in the Novice single sculls. Dave Rothwell and Ken Andrews achieved a fourth place in Veteran double sculls and along with Sharkey and Moritz Bauer claimed another fourth place in the Veteran quad sculls event. In the final of the Restricted 2 single sculls, Colin Sinclair was within one second of second place in a blanket finish and later sculled to fourth place in the Restricted 1 event. Hazel Geddes and Katie Van Exan sculled to a fine third place finish in the final of their Veteran A double sculls event whilst Susanne Standish-Hunter and Hazel Smith completed their weekend with a solid second place in the Veteran C double sculls finishing closely behind their Strathclyde Park RC opponents.

The next main season regatta at which Inverness athletes will be competing will be the the Castle Semple Regatta which takes place on Lochwinnoch in Renfrewshire on 17th May.