Tideway Scullers School

The club fielded five crews - one a composite with Thames - at Hammersmith Women's and Juniors' Head.

Raced from Chiswick to Hammersmith, the women's squad used the event as a run-out in preparation for the Women's Head on 1st March.

In true Scullers style, the WS1 lineup had their first outing two hours before the race, but a few good bursts gave them confidence that they had good base speed. The race got off to a good aggressive start, but they struggled to find a solid rhythm and finished second in the women's eights, half a second behind the Mortlake WS1 boat and fourth overall. The general consensus was that there is plenty of room for improvement in the next couple of weeks.

On the back of two very good outings (and a very robust pep talk from Tom) the WS2 crew also approached the race with confidence and attitude. Vesta and Mortlake - the two form horses in the category - started behind the TSS crew, who held them off all the way. By Barnes Bridge they were level with the Barnes Bridge Ladies crew who started directly in front, and the planned gear changes further down the course went well and the crew finished third in WS2, ten seconds behind the winners, Vesta.

Of the juniors, only the boys raced: no girls' crews were available as they were all off skiing or in the caribbean or something (it being half-term). Sarah, however, was drafted into the J16 quad at the last minute, and they sculled well to finish second by only six seconds.

The junior men - Max-Vincent, Tom B, Edwin and Daniel - turned in a very good performance to win their pennant and finish second overall, behind the Hampton J15 eight.

The composite J15 quad of Edmund (Thames), Joel, Thomas and Aaron, coxed by Julia, won their category comfortably and had a great time overtaking lots of eights and octuples on the way to finishing fifteenth overall.