Rowing club off to winning start

The juniors led the way at a highly-eventful Worthing Regatta by collecting a double win en route to helping the club to the Junior Aggregate and Grand Aggregate titles.

Ashley Cahill, Matt Hellier, Joe Pellet, Toby Matthews and cox, Andy Bickers, a team which also finished third in the Junior Senior event, led from start to finish to collect their first win as a crew.

Hellier and Cahill then teamed up to race the Junior Pairs where they produced the biggest winning margin of a Bexhill crew, winning by over 10 lengths.

Further success came in the Veterans' Fours where Bexhill had two teams in the final. The A crew of Dave Jones, Steve Hopkins, Steve Bickers, and Glen and Callum Payne won by two lengths from Hastings, with the newly-formed B team of Bob Balchin, Paul Dawes, Clive Bingham, Graham Dawes and Terri Miller coming home sixth. The B crew had headed the A crew, however, until an incident forced a re-row.

Bexhill's final win of the day came in the Senior Fours where Matt and Mark Mitchell teamed up with Keiran Cahill, Chris Mizen and Miller.

The Bexhill crew pushed ahead after just 60 metres and came home triumphant after the initial race, which Bexhill led, was stopped following a crash between Hastings and Shoreham at the turns that caused serious damage to the Hastings boat. The Mitchell brothers also notched second place in the Senior Pairs.

Another crew to finish second was the Junior Senior team of Nick and Phil McCorry, Ben Muggeridge, Doug Holdaway and Callum Payne.

In the Ladies' Pairs, the new crew of Jemma Cropper and Jennifer Dawes finished fourth in their first race together.

Bexhill will be looking to build on these results over the next two weekends when they will be heading to Folkestone and Hove.