Last Sunday Henley Rowing Clubs Junior Women and Senior Women competed at Abingdon Head of the River. This Head which is raced over the relatively short distance of 2200metres is notable for its course which includes a double bend more suitable to motor racing than rowing. This requires particular skill from those steering coxless boats and eight's as a mistake on the bend can loose time or even worse the crews being embed in the river bank. This did not though cause any of Henley coxless boats a problem as they came away with five very convincing wins, two for the Senior Women and three for the Juniors.

The Juniors wins came in the quads sculls events. The Junior crew of Lucy Pratt, Louisa Pickworth, Lucy Darke and Bethan Thomas having a comfortable win in a time of 9mins 30 sec's 28sec ahead of second placed Gloucester and over a minute ahead of third placed Maidstone Invicta. The fast Henley crew of the day if the time is to be believed was the J16 crew of Hannah Boyd, Kate Osborn Jones, Gemma McIntosh and Melanie Gilson who according to the organisers won in a time of 8:41 though this is more likely to be a time of 9:41 which would still have put them 34 seconds ahead of nearest rivals Reading Rowing Club. The third Junior win was the J15 quad of Becci Griffiths, Kaye Davies, Hannah Read, Lucy Lewington and cox Matt Crouchman again winning with a comfortable margin of 29 sec's over Evesham RC. Evesham though did get there revenge by winning the J15 double sculls where they finished just ahead of Henley's fancied pairing Lucy Lewington and Hannah Read.

For the Senior Women Caroline Hocking and Lucy Mills won the Women's Senior 2 double sculls event beating local rivals Wallingford by 3 sec's in a time of 9 minus 36 sec's. In women's senior 4 Juliet Hookey and Esther Dingley had a comfortable win finishing 24 seconds ahead of City of Oxford in a time of 10mins 5secs.

In women's junior sculls Rachel Dadds sculled well to finish second behind Aitchison of Upper Thames.

This coming weekend the J16 and J15 girls will be representing the Thames West division in the inter regional regatta being held on the multi lane international course in Nottingham