We paddled up to the 200m start to be greeted by a familiar face and voice - Jo Gunderson was starter for the day! With Guinevere's tail on the breakwater we lined up against Worcester in a two-boat race, focussed and like a coiled spring. On the G of go, we let out the usual Exe-Calibre grunt and shot off the start, matching Worcester stroke for stroke. Meanwhile Jo G was watching us, with tears rolling down her cheeks, as we were all so perfectly in time and looking so fantastic! Our timing and technique pulled us through and we raced to a photo-finish, and beat Worcester with a brilliant time of 55.31 secs, against their 55.91 secs.

This fabulous start took us straight into the semis - what no repping, again? This time we lined up against Notts Anaconda and Amathus. Unfortunately the smoothness of the first race was a bit lacking in this second run, our start was rushed, and we went a little bit slower, but still soundly beat Notts, and didn't trail Amathus by too much.

This run took us into the minor final with BA Hurricanes and Worcester. We fought our way down the course, but Worcester were not going to let us beat them a second time in one day, so we had to settle for 2nd place with a solid second between us and third placed BA. So, 16 league points bagged.

The lunch break saw a few of our members donning their anoraks to go and 'spot' the steam trains that were passing by. Then with a bellies a little fuller (but not too full) we set out to try and find the 500m start. Paddling out past the breakwater we soon encountered some choppy water and realised that we'd be paddling into a strong headwind - lovely! We were so organised that we got to the start line before the BDA officials.

Some time later, when the BDA officials had managed to locate the start, we lined up in a two-boat race with BA Hurricanes. Are you ready? Attention, Go... we set off and were soon reminded of paddling at the Nationals last year - eyes shut, into the wind, being sprayed with water every stroke. This 500m was without doubt the longest 500m ever, it went on, and on, and on. Luckily Chrissie called us up for a nice early 'Drive' which got us to the line a bit quicker! We couldn't quite beat Hurricanes this time (but they were Major Final winners in the 500 at Nottingham), so had to settle for second place!

Our time of 2 min 23.53 sec (I told you it was long!) ensured that we didn't have to rep in the 500's either (joy!) and took us straight into the Cup semi. This race saw us lining up against Secklow 100 (Boo!) and Kingston Royals (Eek!). Our plan was to stay with Kingston for as long as possible and this worked for about 20 metres, after which their superior fire power propelled them to an excellent win in 2 min 11.45 sec. We finished some way behind, albeit with a better time than our first run, in 2 min 21.04 sec. However, poor Secklow had to make do with third, arriving at the line some 13 seconds behind us!!

So, again we were in the Cup Minor Final - this is getting to be a bit of a habit! We knew we had safely netted our 16 league points, so the pressure was off and the last effort of the day was there to be enjoyed. Our final consisted of BA Hurricanes (again) and Raging Dragons - two of the big boys. Our brave Exe-Calibre crew settled into the last race, finally relaxing into those big, powerful strokes and despite being in third place, we paddled our best 500m time of the day, with 2 min 19.01 sec. So, 6th overall in the 500m and 5th overall in the 200m - a great day's effort and 32 league points to add to our booty!

Congratulations go to the entire crew and to Vicky H, who lost her race virginity and is now 'hooked'. We always manage to reel them in eventually!!