Loughborough Boat Club

Loughborough Boat Club’s Keith Hudson and Oliver Kortlang have proved to be a successful combination winning at three different regattas over the last few weeks in Double Sculls. The River Severn at Shrewsbury Regatta provided a picturesque setting for their first win in the Senior 2 event. In a hard fought race they managed to pull ahead of Weybridge for a half length victory. Next up was Doncaster Regatta where they again found themselves against Weybridge in the final - this time increasing their winning margin. At Northwich Regatta they switched to the Veteran B event and beat home club Northwich by over a length.

Kortlang made it a double win at Shrewsbury in the Senior 4 Double Sculls with Andy Martin. Coming through with an easy win against Guildford and half a length over Burton Leander they took an impressive three and a half length lead in the final against Bewdley.

At Doncaster Hudson had a second Double Sculls win, this time with Amy Lane in the Mixed event by a length over Hollingworth Lake - despite having to fight their way back into the race after some erratic steering led to a collision with another boat.

Kortlang also gained a second win at Doncaster as part of the Senior 3 Quad Sculls with Neil Martin steering at bow, Andy Martin and James Lane . They established an early lead against a composite Weybridge/Doncaster crew and held on to the half length gap until the finish. With Lee Garratt then substituting for Kortlang the Loughborough Quad had another success in the Senior 4 event They were down off the start against rivals Newark but dug in and came back to cross the line just a few feet ahead.

In Single Sculls at Northwich Caroline Lomax gained her first sculling win when she beat a home club sculler in the final of the 1000m Women’s Novice event by one and a half lengths. The Loughborough Club were hoping to make it a double in the novice sculls when Lee Garratt made it through to the final in both the 1000m and the 500m events but he just missed out by a few feet in each race – after also reaching a close run novice sculls final at Doncaster.

The Double Sculls combination of Keith Hudson and Alan Perry in the Veteran C/D event at Northwich was an even closer near miss when they dead heated with Merchants 98 in the final. This meant a re-row of the race but the Loughborough crew hit the bank on the notoriously narrow course and couldn’t manage to get back into contention.

Photo: Oliver Kortlang and  Keith Hudson in the Double 

Two other Club members gained an important achievement recently. Rosey Dixon and Isobel Jones were selected to represent the East Midlands in the England Junior Inter Regional Championships.

The Club’s own regatta will be held this Sunday at the National Watersports Centre at Holme Pierrepont. It is run jointly with the National Veterans Regatta so attracts entries from throughout the UK .

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