Those who had camped the previous night were delighted that they could hear and see the Prodigy concert without having to pay for the tickets! Other brave souls made the drive up in the morning and by 8.45am we were proudly erecting our brand new event shelter. And, a very fine event shelter it is too. Our first heat was not until 10.50am, so we settled onto blankets and chairs for some pre-race chilling out.

Our first race saw us taking on Notts Anaconda, our closest rival in the Standard League and Kingston Royals, a premier crew currently at the top of the Premier League for the 500m and second in the Premier League for the 200m. Our race plan was the usual - massive start, massive middle and massive finish! We also added a cheeky 'go for the line' call to make sure we kept the pressure on all the way down the course. As ever the crew was completely focussed on the start line, sitting tall and thinking about the first few strokes.

Are you ready? Attention, Go! We flew off the start like a dragon boat possessed, jumping both the other crews off the line. About ten strokes later the boat freed off and we locked into massive strokes. Halfway down we were still going strong and despite my attempts to keep the focus in the boat (honest!), I could see that we were still up on Kingston Royals!! Fighting our way down the course, no-one in the boat was giving up and we crossed the line with the hooters going almost simultaneously. The look on the Kingston paddlers' faces was a sight to behold - they were quite literally stunned! The final times recorded were Exe-Calibre 50.38, Kingston Royals 50.76 and Notts 52.13. So, with a clear win we qualified directly for the Cup semis and forced Kingston Royals to rep!

On to the 200m Cup semi and we lined up alongside Secklow 100, Batchworth and Plastic Fantastics. We knew this would be a tough race with ever-speedy Batchworth and the home club Secklow gunning for us after our first round success. Our goal was to stick with Batchworth as long as we could! Again, a gutsy run kept us in contention with Batchworth (we held them on the start!) who came in first, we were just pipped at the post by Secklow, but recorded an awesome sub 50 sec time of 49.73 sec.

Once again, we had qualified for the minor final! Again we were up against Secklow 100, as well as Worcester Dragons and TAO. It was time to really scrape the bottom of the barrel for power and energy and Exe-Calibre rose to the challenge, recording an even faster time of 49.44 secs - this time beating both Secklow and TAO and coming in a close second behind Worcester (48.92 sec). So, a brilliant 6th place overall and another 16 league points.

A typically short lunch break followed (a mere 20 minutes) before we had to change gear for the 500m. We paddled out feeling confident and reaching out for our longest, strongest strokes. It's safe to say that this was probably the most faffing ever on a BDA start line. The commentator, sorry, I mean starter seemed to take great pleasure in describing what each team was doing on the start line '4 you are forward a couple of metres, oh, now you have drifted forward even more..', '2, you are too far back from the line'. The classic was 'Mmmm...' heard over the tannoy - not sure what that meant! Finally, after much toing and froing (and of course with Exe-Calibre completely focussed and unfazed by the whole rigmarole) we were off.

We were racing against TAO, Pershore and Henley, so really it was a two-boat race between us and TAO. We stormed off the start (as usual), locked into the transition and settled into our long strokes. At about 150m TAO made their move and started to pull back inch by inch (Pershore and Henley were long gone!). Chrissie gave us the calls to keep fighting and we didn't let them take us, until they just squeaked past us at the finish line with a time of 2:01.40 compared to our 2:01.80. We clearly rattled them though and their drummer declared that he 'was beginning to hate us!' That's what we want! It was only till the end that most of us found out that Westy had been hitching a ride most of the way down the course as he had snapped his carbon-fibre paddle! How lazy is that?

Our great time qualified us for the Cup semis, so we at last had a decent break between races. Much sunbathing, snoozing, grazing and hydrating followed.

Then it was time to wake up and snap into our 500m semi. This was going to be a tough race up against Secklow 100, Kingston Royals and Raging Dragons. We added a secret weapon to our race plan - front loading the first 250m with a couple of attacks so that we could try and hold off the drop we'd been experiencing after the start. Also, we were confident that with Westy actually paddling (despite having to use a wooden paddle!) we could go just a little bit faster. The target was to go sub 2 min!

Again, our trusty Exe-Calibites locked on to a huge start and chose to fight all the way down the course. Kingston were clearly not going to let us beat them again that day, finishing first in 1:57.94, Raging Dragons fought just a little harder than us coming second in 1:58.32. However, we clawed our way to third place in an awesome time of 1:59.21 - sub 2 min for the first time in club history over a full 500m! Secklow 100 had to make do with our wake, despite their brand new Plastex boat.

Another Cup minor final for Exe-Calibre! That major final will come one day soon! Mixing it with the big boys has become a habit with Exe-Calibre, so we were delighted to be sharing the race with Raging Dragons, TAO and Hurricanes. Once again we stormed off the start, holding nothing back and went for the front loading attacks with gusto! What a race! Neck and neck, fighting for inches all the way down we came a worthy third in 1:59.98 behind Hurricanes (1:58.59) and Raging Dragons (1:59.53). TAO had even more reason to hate us as we beat them into fourth place. So, 7th overall in the 500m and another 16 points for the league! No bling, but a bloody big trophy coming our way at the end of the season!

Finally, the ladies race saw us mixing it with Crusaders and Henley in the last race of the day - a five boat ladies race! The wind had got up so there was a lot of backwards paddling on the start line. With our bodies screaming for mercy we took on our last 200m of the day and recorded a not half bad time of 56.28.

So, another fantastic day of racing, sunshine, great venue, snazzy new shelter and 32 league points to bring home. Brilliant! Just two more league events to go, before we can strut our stuff at the National Cup and that Cup Major final is tantalisingly within our grasp!

Usual thanks go to Sparky for brilliant helming, Chrissie for awesome drumming and to all paddlers for their gutsy, over-the-edge bravery.

And of course, nobody died!

Here we go - onwards and upwards to Worcester, where Exe-Calibre Blades and Maidens will make their second appearance of the race season. Can't wait!