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After many months of planning and zero training our heros set off early on Saturday morning from the Mill, with Peters Camper Van, and other sundry vehicles loaded with all the essentials required for a long day away. Both Langstone Lady and SWeare Deep heading due East, destination Newhaven, gateway to Dieppe home of the lost village of Tide Mills. The objective to race the Head of the Ouse to Lewes, the County Town of East Sussex. Also en route were Three Harbours mates, Langstone, Tudor, Yarmouth, Dell Quay, Slipper and CYC! The cutters were racing the Head of the Ouse for the first time. The HOTO as it is fondly known was in its fourth year is a race for fixed seat rowing boats from the Port upriver to Lewes Rowing Club and then back again with the Open category, including mixed crews rowing upstream for the 10 kilometres where the ladies take over to row back. There are some 12 categories of race including classes of like boats and overall for men’s, ladies and mixed measured on the handicap set by the Ouse Yardstick. The yardstick, which was devised and agreed by the Three Harbours group, is based on the Portsmouth yardstick for sailing dinghies and is set upon the results achieved by the various vessels at a range of events including the Great River Race, Round Hayling, Tudor and Cockleshell Challenge over the past five years. The aim of the yardstick is to provide all boats, irrespective of size or numbers of oars with an equal opportunity of success when racing each other. As our crews arrived at Newhaven the tension amongst the competitors grew, boats of all shapes and sizes were launched, first and in some cases second bacon butties consumed and a persistent downpour of rain absorbed, our teams were ready to race. The organisers were particularly pleased to see Langstone Lady as it is their anniversary year and they just love traditional wooden boats and have a fair few of their own including “Gecko” a clinker built six oar fixed seat sculling boat and “Betty” an eight oared cutter, both lovely fast vessels rowed by determined crews. The race itself saw crews set off with time gaps of 30 seconds between boats of similar classes. Lady was second to go, just behind Gecko and both set off at pace chasing the lead umpire who struggled to keep ahead as they powered upriver on the remains of the tide at speeds often in excess of 9 mph. As Newhaven was left behind the river twisted and turned heading towards and between the South Downs where appreciative cattle, Fresian in the main, replaced our more familiar grey seals as the main spectators, along with the occasional Kingfisher, Peregrine and Buzzard. The course itself was challenging to say the least with a number of bridges and tight turns and coxes did well to find the best lines and avoid the large floating objects, sunken vessels, doors, trees etc heading towards the Channel. The finish came shortly after a particularly tight bridge where the current conspired to shoot the crews past the awaiting pontoon and beer stop. All safely ashore and third butties, beers and cakes consumed and the ladies were off on the return trip. At the end of the day all crews helped each other recover and gathered in and around the The Hope Inn to share tales of the day and simply enjoy each others company over a pint! Prizes were accordingly awarded across the categories but none of that seemed to matter as much as the feeling of camaraderie experienced by all those lucky enough to have been there!
Anon
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