Wednesday, June 20, 2012

One Week To Go!

The finish line getting closer to completion
Ok so now we are into the final week before racing. So far we have been getting up very early in the mornings at 5am to get on the water well before any of the other crews. It's quite nice to be able to head out with no other traffic and get the course to ourselves. This morning was interesting as there was fog over the first half. It is very noticeable when the first crews begin to drift past you going the other way, even though they don't kick out much wake the disturbed water is quite strong.

New licence


I have also spent the time going up both lanes trying to get my eye in on the steering and when we are on early it's not so hard to steer a straight course with no real worries. But in the afternoon with so many crews around and the water moving a bit quicker, the boat gets pushed around a lot and there is not a lot of room for error. I just have to pray to the steering gods to keep my foot true. 

We have given the boat a clean and its new licence plate. The boat has had a hard life from the looks of it but we are looking after it and with the tender love and care from Ruud and Chris at Hudson it's not in bad shape. I do feel like the team from Cool Runnings though. This is all in readiness for the 800m sprint race on Saturday.

Changing of the Guards
We have been relaxing a bit in our last few days at Shiplake. We will be moving out of our luxury accommodation at the end of the week before we head to the Reading Town Regatta. We are staying at the same place we stayed two years ago with the lovely Brassey family. No doubt we will introduce them later. Instead today Brad, Henry and I went to Windsor Castle while Joe stayed back and studied. It was a beautiful day as they have all been recently.
Free samples




Thanks to those that signed the flag!
We were too cheap and short on time to go for the tour of the Castle but we heard that the Queen herself was actually in residence. We wandered around for the castle gardens and had a chat with a friendly member of the staff. We watched the changing of the Guards before wandering around the local shops. We found a fudge store and Henry and I managed to pack some fudge before we left.

The cleaning ladies

Brad trying to pump some water

1 comment:

  1. Gee Brad, only been there for a couple weeks and you already look like a pommy git in those pink pants

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