The winning crew were (B-S): Rahma Barclay, Alex Johnson, Kat Hedges, Vicky Williams, Lara Brock, Vics McLeod-More, Charlie Dempster, Emily Trant and Julia Hedley (coxswain), and are very ably coached by Matt Gilliver, James Parris and Paul Fitzwilliam. This is an incredible achievement, rewarding our girls and coaches for their huge amount of effort, patience, tenacity and humour over the past nine months.

Earlier in the weekend, Vesta was very well represented in the quarter finals of the Intermediate Club eights with our club crew losing by two lengths to the eventual winners, Thames Rowing Club, our lightweight coxless four losing to Marlow Rowing Club, and Ailsa Tremayne losing to London Rowing Club in the elite singles.

A Vesta Senior Women’s crew will now attempt to qualify for the Remenham Challenge Cup this Friday at Henley Royal Regatta, please come and support them along with the Vesta Senior Men’s Wyfold ‘B’ Entry

This was Vesta’s 18th appearance in a Henley Final; the full list is shown in the results section. Further coverage appeared in the Surrey Comet shortly afterwards.

Vesta’s second boat was entered in the Thames Challenge Cup. Despite a decisive win against Combined Services on Wednesday they were knocked out by favourites Tideway Scullers the following day. The crew of Alasdair Anderson, Rob Shaw, Josh McInerney, Mat Jozwiak, Laurence Manning, Alister Campbell, James Watts and Uinseann McSamhrain and cox Liz Head put in a solid performance and this result proves that a year of technical work and fitness training has brought the squad to a new level with great potential to go even further next year.

As usual, Vesta supporters were out in force and leading the famous ‘Remenham roar’ as our crews streaked past the club! Many thanks to all who turned up and we hope to see you all again next year for even more success and champagne on Paul Baldwin, our ever-generous chairman.

The intermediate coxed four of Vics Mcleod-More, Aga Siemiginowska, Emily Druce and Natasha Henderson-Ross with Andrew MacMillan coxing did well to qualify in a strong field. Sadly, they then lost to eventual finalists City of Oxford in the first round.

The eight of Verity Ansell, Sarah Wood, Anna Barkensjo, Charlie Dempster, Gaby Turner, Rahma Barclay, Emily Trant and Kitty Lowings coxed by Ross Martin did particularly well, storming through the time trial and all three rounds on the way to the final with some close races on the way (including a canvas win over Putney Town in the second round).

In the final they came up against a very strong York City crew who had posted similar times to Vesta during the regatta. Throughout the race York had to pull out all the stops to repel Vesta pushes again and again, but they just managed to hold on and went on to win by a length.

The Elite coxless four of Anna Storrs, Kat Hedges, Mary Donovan and Becki Helson faced an incredibly tough field but after a determined fight and some interesting steering from both crews they clawed out a lead of a length and a quarter in their semi to become the second Vesta crew this year to make a HWR final. In the final they sadly lost out to a fierce Molesey crew which included some GB triallists.

Freya Johnstone put in a gutsy row down the course up until the halfway point, where she lost her lead on her opponent in the lightweight singles heat.

All in all, although it’s gutting to come so close to a win, reaching two HWR finals is a phenomenal achievement for the squad and congratulations must go to the athletes and especially to the coaches Matt Gilliver, Paul Fitzwilliam, Jessica Essex and the guest coaches such as Rusty Williams.