Congratulations to our four winning crews ath Muckross Head of the River on the 7th December.    The successful crews were the Women's Intermediate Double of Daisy Callanan and Clodagh Scannell.   the Women's Intermediate Quad of Daisy, Clodagh, Katie Nagle and Fiona O'Keeffe,    the Women's Junior 14 Coxed Quad of Aine Buckley, Dara Brady, Aine Rice, Chelsey Minihane, Zara Finn (Cox),     the Men's Junior 18 Quad of Stephen O'Sullivan, Ronan Byrne, Colm Hennessy and James Hodkinson.   The four pennants will be added to the ever growing collection on our club-house walls.

Well done to all 36 Shandon Crews who competed and especially to those who who were competing in an event for the first time.     Great work was done by our Captain, Ken Lynch, and our coaches in ensuring that all crews got to row.    Thanks also to our neighbours Lee Rowing Club and Lee Valley Rowing Club for the use of their boats without which our last two crews would not have been able to take to the water.      The full results, with times,  are posted on the Rowing Ireland website at    

http://www.rowingireland.ie/documents/_Muckross%20HOR%202013%20-%20Category%20Results.pdf

Our 2013 Learn to Row Camp which ran from Monday 29th July to Friday 2nd August was a great success with 40 boys and girls between the ages of 11 and 13 participating.     Jamie Byrne and his ten junior rowing helper, ran a great programme with lots of fun and some learning to row for all the participants.    The weather held good for the full week and we were able to get on the water every day.    The highlight I hear was the big splash at the end of the week when all 40 hit the water and made sure that the coaches followed them in.   Happily approximately 15 of the young rowers have returned in September to sign up as junior members of the club.

Shandon Boat Club would like to wish every good luck to the seven club members who will be representing their country over the next few weeks in a number of International events.    Pride of place goes to Andy Harrington and Jack Casey who will be Ireland's representatives in the Men's Double in the World Junior Rowing Championships in Lithunia.      Following on their recent Irish Rowing Championships success Jack and Andy have every chance of doing well in Vilnius.   

Good luck also to Daisy Callanan and Clodagh Scalann who represent the club in the Coupe de la Jeunesse (i.e the European Junior Rowing Championships)  and to Clodagh O'Sullivan, Colm Hennessey and Luke Carroll who will be participating in the Home International Champonships.   All these rowers bring immense credit to themeselves, their families and Shandon.

The 2013 Irish Rowing Championships ended the club's season on a very high note over the weekend of the 19th/20th21st July.   First up on Friday were our Men's Novice Coxed Quad of Otto Cronje, Donal Smith, Cathal Merz and James Hodkinson, coxed by Meg Holland.     Shandon has had a win and a 2nd in this non-championship event over the past two Championship Regattas and the 2013 crew did not dissapoint with a gold medal performance beating a Trinity College crew in the final.

On Saturday the Junior Men's Quad of Andy Harrington, Jack Casey, Luke Carroll and Dan Begley won our first Championship pennant in a great final, beating a fancied Skibbereen crew by a length after the boats had been locked together for the first 1,500 metres.    The Shandon crew drew away in impressive style displaying great power and determination in a race winning drive for the line.

On Sunday Andy and Jack completed the "double" by winning the Men's Junior Double in very impressive style, leading the whole way and running out winners by a distance at the end.   This was a great confidence booster in advance of their representing Ireland in this event at the World Junior Rowing Championships in August.

Other very meritorious performances were that of Stephen O'Sullivan and Ronan Byrne who won their Men's Junior 15 single sculls races and the Women's Junior 16 Eight who were very unfortunate to catch two big crabs when going very well in their final and who finished very strongly after the crabs had ruled them out of a battle for podium places.

Well done to all who participated and I look forward to displaying the pennants for our 13th and 14 Championship wins in the club.