An excellent turnout for this years National Finals saw 38!! Secklow paddlers on the water over the weekend

Most paddlers making the whole weekend, this almost saw us putting 2 boats out on Sunday (next year?)

This made for a few selection problems, but they are the kind of problems we like.

With so many of us it meant we were not all worked to death, like last year, although some still were, sorry :-)

The start of the weekend saw nearly all of us there on time and ready to get on the boat or cheer, an excellent ^.

As ever we went through a series of 'most important race of the day' but the 200 open saw us with a top 3 finish and straight into the cup!.

A tough 2nd race saw us into the reps, which saw us only 28 hundreds of a second behind BA.

So too the Open 200 minor final seeing us come in a credible 3rd ahead of Henley!!, Notts Anaconda and Worcester, 9th overall.

The U18 race saw 5 of our club competing with the Barbarians and beating Amathus for the 1st time in 10 years!

The Ladies race saw Tiamats, with 3 Girls from our friends at Worcester making up the numbers, coming in 4th out of 6th and well in contention

Next the 200 mixed, which saw some tough racing, which saw us into the minor final and 11th overall.

The 1000metres saw us put in 2 solid races and a place in the minor final.

And so to Sunday.

First up the 500 mixed more tough racing saw us move through to the tail race coming in 2nd ahead of Worcester.

Next the U18s with the Barbarians coming in 2nd this time behind Amathus, 1 each and medals all round!.

Then the Ladies, this time with 19 Tiamats and just the drum and 1 paddler from Worcester, 3rd place, making 3rd overall and more medals!

Onto the open 500.

An excellent 1st race saw us straight into the cup again, and, again, running BA close.

Some excellent racing against tough opposition saw us with a chance of getting into the Grand final!

But it was not to be (this time!) and so to the Cup minor final and 4th place ahead of Amathus Bees and Worcester and 10th overall.

All in all an excellent weekends racing with plenty of scalps taken, including Henley's in the 200 open minor final!

Yet again, we have taken some more steps forward as a club and on the water.

We have a few decisions to make, soon, about how we want to develop and where we want to go.

But for now lets just savour a great weekend

The Ladies 3rd overall, 6 of our U18s, in the Barbarians, 2nd overall, Open squad in the 200 and 500 Cup competitions

A solid performance from the mixed.

Onwards and upwards my friends, onwards and upwards

Capn C