Crew heading out for Boston regatta
One of the senior men’s crews from Minerva Bath Rowing Club is preparing to head to the United States to compete in the biggest two-day regatta in the world at Head of the Charles in Boston. Crew members Charlie Taylor, Serryth Colbert, Joe Donnelly and Glen Sullivan will fly the Minerva flag alongside 11,000 athletes competing over a 4.8km head course. The training programme has been gruelling and with each of them in full-time jobs with families, finding enough hours to train has taken a huge will and commitment. Charlie Taylor will stroke the boat and works at Knight Frank, who have sponsored the crew by helping with training kit and with blades. He said: “This is a race we have all wanted to do and has become our main focus for the year. We began training for the event back in August and have tried to get out four or five times a week training over longer distances, even before the regatta season finished. “Training has been brutally hard but feel we are now ready and can’t wait to take on the Charles river. It is going to be an interesting race with a number of narrow bridges and large bends, like on the tideway line is vital but it is also important to overtake in the right places. “As usual the cox will have a huge part to play. We have a final warm up races at Reading this weekend before flying to North America. We are racing Club category in Boston so it will be tough, but we will be looking to do Minerva proud.” Club chairman Elaine Hoyes said: “What a year it’s been for Minerva. We’ve tended to think of ourselves as a small friendly rowing club but we’re out there as contenders and winners of some of the biggest events in the world. “Charlie’s crew are already past winners of the World Masters for the 4=+ in Copenhagen, Arnold Cooke and Klaus Riekemann continue to win year in year out, we’ve sent both men’s and women’s crews to Henley qualifiers this year and our women’s Vet D crew of Helen Shepherd, Paula Nixon, Jo Church and Ching Kilby (coxed by Emma Taylor) won the gold at British Rowing’s showpiece event in Nottingham. “We’re also running a packed junior squad, so we hope we’re training up the next lot of Minerva champions too.”