Uk Open Surfboat Championships 2009 and The Italians
The one day UK Open Surfboat Championship 2009 continues to make strides into the world of rowing.
This year a rowing crew from Milan, Italy arrived at the event prepared to experience the thrill of surfboat rowing.
The Canottieri Milano crew of Paolo Maneo, Elia Taddia, Fillipo Moscatelli, Francesco Stoppa and Francesco Fumagalli...........stopped the womens surfboat crews in thier tracks and mobile phones were seen to be used to send txts saying "Good looking Italians....pull a sicky and get here now....!"
"How did you know about this event?" I said in fluent Italianese............."we saw it on YouTube and flew over to try it" came the reply.
The Celtic Longboat Rowers entered two crews "The Tenby Top Guns" and a misfit crew made up of Australians and CLB rowers "The Nottingham Sheriffs" fresh from rowing in the Ridley Scott film "Robin Hood" due for release in May 2010
"How did you know about this event?"............."we had such a good time with the surf rowers and Sweeps in the film boats we thought we would give it a try"
From the river rowing clubs entries came from, The London City Slickers - London RC, Trentside Trash - Nottingham RC, The Cambridge Blues, The Molesey Marauders, The Bristol Breakers - City of Bristol and The Twickenham Tridents - TwRC
The UK Surfboat crews, current European and UK Champions Porthtowan Blue Bali, The Bude Rockets, The Barracudas, The Llantwit Major Crocodiles and The Perranporth Desperados.
Organisers of the event were greeted with a sizeable surf on Saturday August 1st and after a meeting with crew managers all agreed to delay the start of the event to 1/2 tide and hopefully surf conditions would ease and the weather improve. Saunton Sands is a very flat beach which means as the surf gets bigger there is an increasing amount of white water to row through to get past the break and the interval between the waves can be very short. This makes for a bumpy hard row out to the turning bouys, but good long rides on the swells on the return journey.
Each visiting crew were kindly loaned a surfboat and allocated a Sweep or 2nd Sweep should there be a crew clash during the heats. It was also agreed by the Sweeps of the womens crews to run the first round of the Mens races and then decided if conditions were safe enough for the Womens event.
Thr Italians grabbed a 3rd place in their 1st heat of the 1st round with Nick Beringer (UKSRL President) safely guiding them through the surf. They were wide eyed and grinning and promptly fitted a small webcam to the Qtr bar of the surfboat for the 2nd and 3rd rounds and will be putting their race footage up on YouTube.
The Tenby Top Guns were the first crew to roll thier surfboat on the way home.........."That's ok, in the film we then had to play dead.. " fortunately the safety cover of the Saunton Sands IRB and RNLI Jet Ski stood by should they be needed.
The three Rounds of racing are all about accrueing points in order to progress forward to the 2 x 5 boat semi finals. The wheels fell off the Perranporth Desperados campaign when they rolled in the 3rd round and received the DQ and no points.
Semi final 1 was made up of Trentside Trash, Canottieri Milano, Porthtowan Blue Bali, Llantwit Major Crocodiles and The Molesey Marauders
Semi final 2 was made up of The London City Slickers, The Bristol Breakers, The Barracudas, The Twickenham Tridents and The Nottingham Sheriffs.
Credit to the number of river crews that made it to the semis in a decent size surf !
Elimination time..........only the first three crews from each semi would progress to the six boat final.......who would be fit enough to keep on racing over a longer course due to the high tide?
In the Mens final two crews stood out, Porthtowan Blue Bali and The Barracudas (formerly from City of Bristol), both crews dominated the final from the start and it came down to who could hold the wave all the way to the beach and sprint to the finish flag. Congratulations to Porthtowan Blue Bali for retaining their UK Open Surfboat Championship title, The Barracudas 2nd and The Molesey Marauders 3rd.
| Results | |
| 1st Porthtowan Blue Bali | Nick Healey, Tim Bracey, Mladen Maranovil, Tom Hanna, Sweep - Gary Walters |
| 2nd The Barracudas | Chris Sparrow, Russell Croft, Martin Downey, Dominic Hall, Sweep - Mark Bannister |
| 3rd The Molesey Marauders | Pete Wells, Max Stallard, Tom Stallard, Gavin Weeks, Sweep - Nick Beringer |
| 4th The Bristol Breakers | Alex Cheney, Will Downey, Tony Larkman, Morgan Specht, Sweep - Peter Gaisford |
| 5th Twickenham Tridents | Mike Dowell, Scott Smith, Adam Ellis, Estevao Pape, Sweep - Richard Meadmore |
| 6th Trentside Trash | Roland Evans, Edward Whiteley, Nigel Jones, Matthew Ballaam, Sweep - Mike Lord |
The Womens UK Open Surfboat Championship 2009 was postponed and will take place in Bournemouth on the 26th September within Round 5 of the UKSRL VB Summer Series. The Championship pointscore and the Summer Series pointscore will run side by side over the three rounds, leading to qualification for the Championship semifinals or a straight final (depending on entries). Current entries still stand and the UKSRL will accept further entries from womens crews for The Womens UK Open Surfboat Championship 2009. entry form on website www.uksrl.co.uk
Thankyou to, the helpers, the RNLI, Saunton Sands SLSC, the finish line judges, the recorders and the Event Referee - Spike Gaisford, without you we could not conduct the UK Open Surfboat Championship event.
Thank you to Steve at The Secret Spot for providing the rowers campsite and Andy Murfett of The White Lion for the BBQ and use of his beer garden for the presentation ceremony and congratulations to raffle winners Laura Hetherington - Wategate Bay Hotel voucher (worth £250) and Alex Cheney for the Tandem Sky Dive voucher (worth £200)
European Surf Rowing Championships 2009 - Tolcarne Beach, Newquay, Sat 5th and 6th Sept, crews have entered from Holland, France, UK and there maybe a possible entry from Italy, entry forms on www.europeansurfrowers.com
