The last weekend in June saw Exe-Calibre heading up to Nottingham to compete in our first ever BDA league event on the river Trent. It certainly felt strange not to be racing at the water sport centre; however, the glorious sunny weather and wide river soon helped us to feel settled in!

We fielded a somewhat depleted team (due in the main to some of our ‘big guns’ being at Glastonbury – it really is a question of priorities guys!!!) with just seventeen paddlers. We were delighted that Sharon and her daughter were able to help us make up numbers, and due to Dave Miller and his babysitting duties Jo Gundersen was able to take to the water for the first time in a little while! We also had no helm either, so luckily Steve managed to rope in some paddling colleagues from other teams to see us through the day. Brendan Miller also made his debut on the drum!

We started our day with a 200m run against Kingston Royals and Worcester Dragonflies – coming second (quite a long way behind Kingston!) and thankfully beating the dragonflies! Our slightly (!) slower than usual time meant that we ended up in the tail race and came second, bagging ourselves 10 points – rather disappointing, but better than the ‘NIL POINT’ we would have got if we hadn’t gone at all!

Putting our disappointment aside, the weather was absolutely glorious and we managed to catch some rays during the lunch hour!!

The afternoon assault on the 450m began with a heat against Colenorton and Worcester. Problems with timing meant that we ended up in third place. After some serious re-thinking about the stroke, the rate and general timing we headed into the reps (Yuk!) and ended up going 3 seconds slower! Ooops! And to add insult to injury, we were beaten by Worcester Dragonflies…..on the positive side the sun was still shining!!

After another re-jig of the strokes we headed into our last race of the day and managed to bag FIRST place – beating Worcester Dragonflies (phew!) and Colenorton (a premier team who also didn’t have their full-strength crew clearly!). So, another 10 league points in the bag, meaning that Exe-Calibre now sits 5th in both the 200m and the 500m Standard league table. However, there are still three more league events to go, and lots more league points to be won!

To summarise, gloriously sunny weather, some precious league points won and a valiant effort by a depleted but committed crew. Many thanks to the Miller family without whom we probably couldn’t have managed! Also thanks to Matty Gundersen for being well-behaved enough to allow mum to paddle! And of course thanks to all those who made the effort to haul their arses all the way up to Nottingham to make sure Exe-Calibre get their seven league races in this year!

Next stop, Worcester!