Vets Head of the River
Open Masters G8+ Bow# 136
Bow - Mike McGuirk
2 - Woody Fischer
3 - Darko Miksic
4 - Vlado Krisek
5 - Dan Sayner
6 - Phil Stekl
7 - Paul Knight
Stroke - Dick Findlay
Cox - Thea Swan
Finish time: 13:30.82
Place: 1st of 8 in G8+
Place: Tie for 9th of 209 Overall (raw time)
Place: 2nd of 209 Overall (handicapped)
Place: 2nd of 33 Foreign entries (handicapped)
The race was run on the flood tide from Hammersmith to Chiswick, somewhat unusual as it is normally run in the other direction, Chiswick all the way to Putney, on the ebb. The race start time, scheduled for 11:30, was locked in well in advance with the PLA (Port of London Authority) and, when the tide didn't run on the expected schedule because of all the land water coming down from upstream, the start time couldn't be adjusted sufficiently to ensure that early starters would ride the flood all the way. This caused some interesting results as the early starters eventually caught up to the adverse ebb current for the latter part of the race whereas later starters had a strong flood helping them all the way. By comparison, the Boat Race, which is also run on the flood from Putney to Chiswick, starts about one hour before the end of the flood as opposed to our start being a few minutes after the start of the flood.
Hammersmith Bridge
Kew Bridge (about 2000m upstream of Chiswick Bridge)
It's about 6200 meters from Hammersmith to Kew Bridge and the tables above indicate that "LW" (low water) takes 44 minutes to get from one to the other or about 2.3 to 2.4 meters per second. A good 8+ is probably going twice that fast and thus, if it starts within a few minutes of the "turn", it will catch up to the outgoing tide. On race day, the tide turned a little late and a 10 minute delay in the start time was not sufficient to guarantee a favorable current all the way to Chiswick. In addition, it takes a while for the current to crank up to maximum velocity after the turn so later starters enjoyed a stronger flood than the early starters.