Saturday October 1st was the 51st running of the Rhine Marathon between Leverkusen and Dusseldorf, and the Billygoats were there again after a 2 year pandemic hiatus. We rowed as a Masters F coxed quad, this time with first timer Ian Clarke (aka The Pres) at 3. When asked to describe the experience for this article, Ian succinctly put it this way: “It was brutal”!
Our day started well with the organizational gods giving us a later than usual start time, allowing for a leisurely breakfast and a daylight bus departure up to the start instead of the pre-dawn routine we were used to. This photo shows the crew at the start: Ian Clarke, Clive Woodman, Roly Beevor, Wolfgang Wacke and Neil Gardner.
As we rigged our boat the weather was already making its intentions clear, with frequent squalls coming out of the west. We set off between showers and soon settled into cruise mode, with the Rhine giving us not too rough a ride until we got to about half-way where the river veers west. Cue headwinds and nasty choppy water. This was our first “brutal’ stretch which tested the crew and slowed down our progress.
Nevertheless we survived that and got moving quicker again until we reached the bridge about 5km from the finish. Straight into the wind again and with the bridge squeezing the airflow faster under it, we felt as though the boat were stopped and making no progress, just rocking around in the rough water! Proper brutal this time, but stroke Roly drove us out of there and then raised the rate to 25-spm to give us a smartish finish in 2hrs 47min (see picture below). We were 5th in our category out of 9 finishers, a performance we are pleased with as we beat some German crews!
Post Marathon festivities were then engaged in at our host club, Ruderclub Germania Dusseldorf, to whom we again owe a great debt of gratitude for their hospitality and support with equipment and the supply of our trusty cox Wolfgang.
Scribe: NG, October 2022