On 3 June, 14 members, two supporters and two dogs travelled to the leafy suburbs of Dundee for their annual regatta. This was NBRC’s sixth attendance at the event which has become a favourite in the calendar and was further enhanced with the fact it was a glorious sunny day with just a light easterly giving a challenging row at the start and finish of each race.
The smaller team meant we only competed in five of the eleven races and we were not able to enter the novice, junior and older women’s competitions. The 2km triangular course provided a fair test and races were set off in two waves so crews were aware that they were competing against boats in the other race so there was no letting up even if your skiff was well ahead.
Thirteen clubs took part, mainly from the Dundee area and the north east coast and Cromerty was the furthest travelled with Eastern and us the only two from the south side of the Forth. We didn’t have our full squad and so advance predictions didn’t stand for much although Bro’ty were expected to have home advantage and Eastern are always strong in depth.
Our day got off to a good start in the Women’s 40+ winning the bronze prize following in the two favourites. Brot’y and Eastern also just beat us in the Men’s 60+ for our second medal of the day. This was a remarkable achievement considering one of our crew was born in the early days of the second world war.
Things got even better for us later in the day when our Women’s 50+ crew pipped our main rivals and won gold. Another gold followed when the Women’s Open once again beat the host club and our Eastern friends to complete our haul for the day. The Men’s Open crew had a slightly disappointing outing missing out on the bronze medal by about 20 secs where there was a lot of packing in by clubs in the race which lasted just over 12mins.
Eastern won the overall event having completed and scored points in all the races. There were lots of compliments to Brot’y for their seamless organisation, hospitality and catering. We all agreed that we look forward to our next trip to the River Tay.
More photos of the day can be viewed here.