An M1 crew missing Matt Main were very grateful to John Syfret for subbing in for the Henley Qualifiers. Whilst not qualifying, a most ridiculous navigation effort on the part of the crew meant that we were lucky to race at all.
Having hired 2 cars to go to Henley, we split ourselves randomly into two groups and aimed to set off at 2pm. Andy Twigg drove John Syfret, John Kelly and Mark Hancock whilst Jason McEwen took Chris Braithwaite, Paul Thomas and myself. Ivan, meanwhile, was arriving by train, having been in London the previous night. The story unfolded as follows:
Having left 30 minutes late, a quick drive to the motorway was in order to avoid the city centre traffic. Not for Andy Twigg. In an attempt to pimp his ride, he decided it was absolutely necessary to return through the traffic to get some CDs to play on the journey. This causes much amusement for the members of Jason’s car, until they ended up going past the M25 junction and ending up on the North Circular. Suddenly the 30 minute lead was in danger of being wiped out, as the queues mounted. Finally, returning to the correct route, no damage appeared to be done, as we reached the queues to get into Henley. Andy’s car was on the M40, and we could get the boat rigged and ready to go. And then the phone call. Twigg-dog had turned onto the M40 the wrong way, and had reached Regent’s Park in London before turning. They were hours away. Meanwhile, Chris, Paul and I had to jog into Henley in order to avoid the car park queues and start on the boat. Jason arrived, followed by Ivan, who was thrown off the train due to having his bike on board during rush hour.
We missed our start time. Chris went to the stewards and requested
that we were given some grace. We had one chance. Chris Smith and his
Cantabs crew provided a sub cox, stroke man and two other rowers to
allow us to get to the start of the course. We pulled in to the bank at
the start. A flash of purple, and the four remaining members of the
crew were sprinting across the field and into the boat. We waited in
the queue for 3 minutes and then spent 7 minutes racing on Henley
reach. Andy’s car was in a field somewhere, and we had failed to
qualify after a terrible race. Somehow it didn’t really matter.
We had had fun and it really was the taking part which was the
achievement.