By some happy accident Dev squad went racing at Durham mostly by themselves. First challenge was to actually put the right boats on the trailer together with their riggers, seats tied down down, blades etc etc, luckily Gill was on site to calmly handle all last minute requests and by some minor miracle all the right parts arrived in Durham.
With the committee safely tucked up in bed we all set off far too early and practised boat rigging in the dark apart from coach Pam who glided in around mid morning demanding to check her boat was set up properly and upset the Zen meditation visualisation techniques being practised by the bow steerers.
First up was the LDS event and Hexham had 4 boats entered:
Dave, Ant, Tim and Angus went up just kissing Elvet and bringing the difference between them and Tarn down to less than 10 seconds in 6:52
Ali, Julie, Christine and Kirsty were pleased with their race hitting 8:14, Ali stroked really well allowing them to apply their ‘catch’ coaching from Seville. There was fantastic steering from Kirsty, the whole crew are in awe of anyone that can get through Elvert bridge without stopping or crashing!
Gill, Anna, Tracy and Sue demonstrated expert blade steering to barely kiss the bridge in 9:02
And finally Neil and David had a good race being very polite and offering younger rowers the best line in 7:48
For the afternoon SBH we had 4 boats again:
Richard, David G, Graham and Sue glided through the bridge barely noticing it was there in 7:26
Coaches Shor and Rob zigzagged along with a rather wonky rudder in 8:13
Anne, Alicia, Juliet and Pam decided they were too good for Masters and took on the Seniors in 9:03
And finally Angus and Dave went up the course again for old times sake in 7:21
There was a possible sighting of Kev winning in a composite crew in 5:52 but it was difficult to tell because of the blur…
All times after handicap adjustment. Thanks to Rob for benign supervision and guidance and Pam and Sue for steering the new racers. 
