13 March 2024

By Tim Koch

On Saturday, 9 March, one day after International Women’s Day, nearly 160 women’s crews raced the Thames Mortlake to Putney Course in the 84th Women’s Head of the River Race (WEHoRR).

A pre-race press release said:

Leander Club start first with a crew containing current GB squad athletes and must surely be favourites for the Head Pennant with the absence of a national squad composite crew this year. Oxford Brookes University BC A starting two places behind them, contains Irish International Claire Feerick, with GB International Saskia Budgett rowing with University of London (4th)… 

There are only five crews entered in the Overseas Pennant this year, with last year’s winners not returning to defend their title. The competitors hail from Ireland, Sweden, Germany, and Spain with the Dublin based composite starting in 85th.

Cambridge University (Number 8) are the highest starting competitor for the University Pennant and will be looking to show their dominance on the Championship Course ahead of the Boat Race later this month, but will face a challenge from the other contenders behind them, in particular Durham University (11) who dominated the BUCS Head a couple of weeks ago.

The Senior Pennant has grown again this year with 57 entries. Again, there is a roughly even split between clubs and universities in the highest starting Senior crews. Tyne Amateur RC (27) took the Provincial Pennant last year and will be looking for a repeat win ahead of a tight band of challengers: City of Bristol (30), Cantabrigian (31), Nottingham RC (33) and Agecroft RC (35).

Leander Club B (2) will be looking to defend the Club Pennant from Thames RC A starting in 5th, the latter club showing incredible strength in depth fielding no fewer than seven crews. London RC (starting 20th) look to be a strong prospect for their last shot at the Medium Club Pennant….

Junior rowing continues to go from strength to strength with an increase to seven crews starting in the top 50 this year. Headington School will be leading the charge from (19) closely followed by Henley RC (21). Shiplake College (38th) lead off the other junior crews in the top 50, with the Scottish Argonauts starting two places behind them.

Recent heavy rainfall has made Thames Tideway ebb tides (such as the WEHoRR is run on) particularly fast and has caused the Port of London Authority to invoke a “Yellow Flag” warning for “manpowered vessels” (but presumably it also applies to woman-driven craft): 

The Port of London Authority advises man-powered vessels, in particular beginners, novices, younger junior (J15s and younger), any weaker crews and those that do not usually navigate on the tidal section of the River Thames not to go afloat on the ebb tide.  

This caused the WEHoRR Committee to make a revised draw on 7 March:

(The Yellow Flag) means that we need to increase the gaps between crews to allow for safe marshalling and navigation within the allotted river closure time for the event, which we are unable to extend. The unfortunate consequence of this is a reduction in the number of crews that we can safely include in the draw. In these conditions, we believe that the appropriate number of crews is around half of the original field. To reach this number we have considered the (Crew Ranking Index) of crews as the primary metric related to race experience.

The draw was reduced to 161 crews.

Going to the start

At the finish

Fraser Innes gives his take on the 2024 WHoRR on the Junior Rowing News site.

Going home

Prize fighters

The entire race is on YouTube courtesy of AllMarkOne. Race photographs are on Ben Rodford’s site.