Reading and Empacher

In between all of us using the computer, jet lag, and not much interesting events to write about I have not been writing. But here is a recap of the past few days. Saturday was the Reading town regatta. It is 700m and is basically a sprint the whole way so bigger crews (which we are not)have a big advantage. We were entered into two events: the school boy 8 event and the intermediate 8 event. We lost the former by one seat to a big crew and we lost the later to a college Irish crew. We were a little disapointed but now we are focused on Henley and ready to take some names!

Sunday was more of a relaxing/recovering day for us. We had a light row in the morning (drills and stready state at an 18 for three laps) and then we went to luch and to the movies to see Transformers II. When we got back marc had a surprise for us. He had borrowed an other boat for us to try. He borrowed an '04 Empacher from a crew who didn't make it into the race (they are realy good boats that most UK crews use, they are also very expensive in the US). After rowing it we fell in love. The old Resolute was a lightweight boat but we needed a midweight boat so this Empacher was perfect.

Race day is arriving very fast. I can see all of the final preparations being made. All of the tents and stands are almost done and the course is almost done being built (yes, every year they rebuild the course and the stands and the boatracks and all of the platforms and barriers on the race course, it is very impressive and must be great for this little town).

BTW: For those who are interested (Henley is a nock out style race) the draw has been picked to view it click here (we are in the Princess Elizabeth Challenge),