The 2011 Scullers Head Winners

The 2011 Vesta Scullers Head took place on Saturday, 3rd December. Vesta is the only club that single-handedly organises not one, but two of the major Tideway Heads – a feat made possible because of members and friends of the club members. Happily not put off by the cold conditions in 2010, we had 528 entries for the 2011 race, with 26 of our own Vesta entries. The event ran without (major) incident with only two crews “DNF”.

Once the dust had settled post-race, and event chairman Sinéad Hayes recovered from mental exhaustion, the winners were celebrated at a prizegiving held on 13th December. Sinéad once again pulled out all the stops to cater for the event in true rower style – i.e. fantastic canapés in vast volumes.

Tommy Thompson and event chairman Sinéad Hayes with winners Adam Freeman-Pask (Imperial) and Imogen Walsh (London RC) and their prizes

Event winners came from all over the UK and from far beyond. Bragging rights for best Tideway club were shared between Tideway Scullers and London Rowing Club with seven wins each. The fastest man and woman were both GB lightweights, Adam Freeman-Pask (21:09.0) and Imogen Walsh (22:35.9). In addition to the medals awarded by event, recast from the original 1953 prize, the fastest men and women received an exquisite scale model sculpture of a single scull cast in pewter.

The Vesta Senior Women’s Squad succeeded in three events, with lightweight Holly De Gay achieving the fastest time of all three despite starting at 521, when the sun was starting to set. The winners were as follows:

Two of Vesta’s winners, Kat Hedges and Holly De Gay, with Sinéad Hayes

Holly De Gay, W.IM3.LWT.1x (23:58.5)

Liz Crighton, W.IM2.1x (24:04.7)

Kat Hedges, W.MasA.1x (24:16.2)

For full results, please check out the Results Page by clicking here.

Even more hotly contested are the Vesta exclusive events, also known as “Dick’s Bar Prizes” (two bottles of cava and glory untold). The categories and winners for these events were:

1st man home: Jamie Halliday
1st male Master: Barry Clarke (… faster than Jamie after adjusting for handicap)
1st woman home: Holly De Gay
1st female Master: Kat Hedges

It is understood that the Cava was appropriately consumed and enjoyed following the Vesta Annual Dinner… an event for which no website write-up is required!

Words and pictures by Martha Kelly.

The Vesta Scullers’ Head is the largest single-division processional single sculls race in the world, and is held over the 4.25 mile championship course from Mortlake to Putney. First sculled in 1954, this year’s race will involve almost 500 scullers attracting entries from all over the United Kingdom and the world, with standards ranging from internationals to novices.

Further details about the event and entries will be available on this website in late September.

E-mails sent to organisers will be answered shortly.

Results from past Vesta Scullers’ Head can be found here.

A message from the organising committee: Apologies for the delay in producing the results, we normally try to publish within 2 hours of the last boat crossing the line, but several blanket finishes needed extra attention and close review of video evidence, which took its time for us to work through. We appreciate that we’ve raised people’s expectations with our normal prompt publication and we hope interested parties appreciate the causes for today’s delay.

As at 14:00 today (27 November) the race is STILL ON. We are closely monitoring the weather forecast but owing to the predicted wind direction we will not be in a position to make a final decision on the race until tomorrow morning.

The organisers appreciate your understanding in this.

Find out more about the race here.

A veritable flotilla of Vesta scullers was out representing their club at this year’s Scullers Head.

There were some very positive results from members of all the squads despite many of the participants recovering from the recent illness that had swept through the club.

As per the norm for a Vesta event everything went smoothly and thanks go out to all who helped out with the organisation and running of the event.

Full Results