Inverness Masters were in the hunt for medals again at the recent Scottish Rowing Championships held at Strathclyde Parkon 7th, 8th and 9th June 2019. Tom Baker of Inverness RC joined three Chesterton RC masters and stormed ahead of Glasgow RC from the start to claim the gold medal in the Open Masters A-C 4+. Another InvernessRC/Chesterton RC composite with Tom Baker, Steve Andrews (CHC), Robert Gordon and Dave Rothwell took second behind Clydesdale ARC and ahead of Castle Semple RC.

Unfortunately the men’s master pairs found tougher opposition from St Andrew and Aberdeen BCs who held off a stiff challenge to take first and second ahead of the Inverness crews.

Heather Gordon and Laura McKenzie of Loch Lomond RC set their mark in the Women's Sen CH Pairs Time Trial with only one Women's J18 2- ahead of them. They finished first in Final B which they led from start to finish with an excellent time of 7:56.33 – this turned out to be the fastest Women's J18 2- time of the day – beating their rivals ASRA in Final A by .59 of a second!

Heather also made her mark in the Women's Sen CH Single Sculls, going from 10th in the Time Trial to finish 2nd in Final B and fourth overall in Women's J18 Single Sculls.

Archie Grey raced his first Open J18 Single Sculls Time Trial which placed him in Final E. He set off with a vengeance, holding first/second place through the first 650m, then hanging on to 5th at 1000m and still 6th at 1500m. Sadly he ran out of strength in the last 500 but huge credit to him for a brilliant effort!

Alex Todd had to scratch from the Single Sculls and the Quad Sculls because of a deep cut on his hand, but he chose to race the Open Sen CH Double Sculls with Archie. They achieved a very creditable 5th place in Final B, a full 18 seconds faster than their semi-final race, and finished fourth out of all Scottish Open J18 Double Sculls!

Alex was very sorry to miss his race in the Open Sen CH Quad Sculls where his seat was ably filled by Heather, racing with three boys – Archie plus another Alex Willis (Clydesdale ARC) and Andrew Tweedie (Strathclyde Park RC). The scratch Quad Sculls looked very together as they headed for their race – a straight final between a very fast group of crews. They came out of the start in a line with everyone except the other 3-way composite – Edinburgh Uni BC + Molesey BC + Univ London BC – which was practically world class! Unfortunately our composite couldn’t maintain this kind of pace and came in at the back, but as the lead boat wasn’t all Scottish, they ended up in last place! So we came 7th.

The four Inverness RC junior girls combined to enter the Women's Sen NC Coxed Quad Sculls over 2000m which was fortunately a straight final – they finished 5th behind Glasgow RC and well ahead of Glasgow Schools. Melissa and Lexie also entered the Women's Senior NC Double Sculls over 2000m, with a 1900m Time Trial and B Final 4th place!
Robbie Baird, Hamish Grant, Orla McMichael and Megan Bromham tackled the new Skills Assessment for J14s with some trepidation – not really knowing what to expect – but they all handled themselves extremely well, bar one or two dips in the Loch!

Both boys raced in the Open J14 Single Sculls and Double Sculls – taking 7th place in their Double Sculls. Robbie came 2nd in the Final C Single Sculls behind Glasgow Academy while Hamish finished 3rd ahead of Strathclyde Park.
Megan and Orla found courage to face the windy loch and completed their first Single Sculls races. Megan came 2nd in Final C and Orla came 3rd in Final B. The girls raced an excellent heat in Women's J14 Double Sculls to qualify for the final where they finished 6th.

Heather Gordon is heading south for Henley Women's Regatta from 21st to 23rd June to race in the Scottish Coxless Four.

Note - a further results report will be produced over the next few days to record results at the British Masters Rowing Championships on 15th and 16th June at Strathclyde Park and from Women's Henley Regatta over the same weekend