Women’s Eights Head of the River: race report

On Saturday 8th March 2025 Isle of Ely competed for the first time at the Women’s Eights Head of the River, racing the boat race course (in reverse) from Chiswick Bridge to Putney Pier. There was uncharacteristic 18-degree sunshine on the Tideway, very happy rowers all along Putney embankment, and it was brilliant to see Isle of Ely finally race in this epic event alongside 300+ other women’s crews. To race such an historic course with 2880 others was probably the perfect way to spend International Women’s Day.

Our W1 crew was raring to go, backed themselves to row hard, and gave a gutsy performance, finishing inside the top 200 crews (16th of 38 masters crews) and ahead of quite a few local rivals and college crews. This was only possible due to unwavering support from our coach Duncan, our superwoman-sub Jill, and friends and family cheering us on. And, last but not least, due to our brilliant Tideway cox Isabel!  Due to the strict eligibility rules, we literally couldn’t have raced without her experience in the boat. Isabel took great care of us, quickly learned how to get the best out of the crew, and calmed our nerves enough for us to even (sort of) enjoy the bouncy Thames water.

Saturday felt like a particular celebration because Ely’s journey to WEHoRR has been a long one: in both 2019 and 2020, the W1 crew was ready to race but last minute cancellation struck (in March 2019, the start list was cut to just 100 crews due to stormy conditions, and in early March 2020 the race was cancelled altogether – again due to weather). Over this last winter, Duncan’s training regime (and a particularly unpleasant* erg programme from January) has been steadily getting the crew ready to race, and paid off brilliantly. Our cox Emily has kept us firmly in line week to week and challenged us to give everything in our practice races, and our super sweep squad ladies Fiona, Izabela and Jill have been there all the way in training.

Racing WEHoRR definitely lived up to expectations, and we’re excited for more races to come!

*Duncan says “surely ‘challenging but highly effective’ with several crew members recording personal bests”.