Out of the Blue wins thanks to late burst
THE revised Out of the Blue crew capped off a gruelling – and at times frightening – couple of hours in the Gorey-Carteret with a mutual feeling of great accomplishment.
The quad of Simon Johns, Shaun Kelling, Sam and Tom de Kooker, with Lloyd Le Page coxing, came in as the fastest boat of the fleet, enjoying both the quickest finish time and line honours over 28km of very rough waters.
The organisers had to start the race early due to wind conditions and this inevitably came with some unfavourable tide.
Among their 10 opponents in the quad class, Guernsey’s stiffest opposition without question came with the crack Caesarean quartet that had powered to Sark2Jersey victory the previous month.
Andy Bowman, Will Le Quelenec, Lee Wells, Michael Rive and cox Megan Barrett had returned in Close Finance and looked to complete a major double in the largest races of the Channel Islands’ race calendar.
It had been a fierce and race-long rivalry, with the two quads overtaking the majority of the earlier starters before too long, and only five or six boat-lengths set them apart as they rounded the Ecreviere cardinal turn-buoy just short of half-way.
Guernsey had been on the favourable side of that gap – but a potential disaster soon struck.
The Wedd Osmond crafted lightweight racing shell had taken in a lot of water amid the chop, bogging it down to an alarming extent, and the Jerseymen managed to draw level and threaten to stroke ahead on the long leg towards the French shore.
After taking some time to shift the water, the Sarnians eventually put on a late-race surge that would amount to a decisive gap of four minutes.
A better choice of racing line had played in their favour and they powered through the closing kilometres to win in 2hrs 21min. 55sec. to Close Finance’s just sub 2-26 time.
‘We are really pleased with what happened – we put on a strong performance and won by over four minutes in the end,’ said GRC captain Sam de Kooker. ‘We were confident that we were going to win, but to take that much out near the end was really pleasing.’
The captain was in an equally buoyant mood to welcome two fellow Guernsey crews to podium finishes in their respective classes.
Champion singles rower James Briggs finished in 2-49-50 to take a superb second in his class to the renowned Pierrick Ledard, who was nearly eight minutes clear.
Meanwhile, the Swoffers duo of Pierre Mahy and Chris Markham finished third in a tightly-strung men’s doubles competition.
Being a new crew for the season, this came as a much-welcomed result for the duo.
