The 58th Erne Head of the River took place last Saturday with some of the top crews in Ireland in attendance while Portora Rowing Club also enjoyed good success, including the J18 8 crew who produced a storming performance to finish 30 seconds ahead of their rivals. The course runs over 6000m to mirror the same length of the Oxford Cambridge boat race and finishes at Portora Royal School.

One look at the start order indicated the standard of racing was going to be high and it certainly did not disappoint on the day. The weather was providing perfect conditions for fast times with a strong following tail wind and some fast stream from last week’s rain. Taking to the water the top crews had the potential of some course records in the back of their minds.

In the J18 8 category the top three boy’s crews from the Irish Championships were all racing to test their speed over the longer distance course.

Portora, the Irish Champions, lead off the group with Bann Rowing Club, Coleraine and St. Joseph’s College, Galway in close pursuit. The Portora crew, featuring several boys still involved in the schools rugby subsidiary shield, pushed away strongly and by the line had put a huge gap of 30 seconds between themselves and Bann and a further 18 seconds back to St. Josephs. This margin of victory indicates this crew will be one to watch as the racing season progresses. The time the boys recorded indeed appears to be the fastest a junior crew has ever completed the Erne Head.

The girls J18 8 had no direct competition entered but were keen to test their speed against Trinity College Dublin’s Women’s senior 8. Trinity are a well drilled crew and had a fantastic row to break the women’s course record by a minute and 10 seconds. The Portora Junior girls finished 34 seconds behind Trinity but were happy with their row knowing they would have broken the senior record by over 30 seconds and they posted the fastest ever junior girls time at the event. Portora also had wins in the Women’s J16 8 and Women’s J18 4+ beating opposition from Dublin and Methody, Belfast.

The top billed race of the day was to be the showdown between Trinity College Dublin and National University of Galway who finished first and second at the Irish Championships in July with only one foot separating them. It was Trinity that lost out on that occasion but under the coaching of Old Portoran Nick Dunlop they were confident of victory on the Erne. Trinity were leading the race off fist and managed to push into a small three second lead by halfway. NUIG kept pushing hard to keep hold of Trinity and by the finish line Trinity had an eight second lead and a new course record by two seconds. The previous course record was held by Belfast Rowing Club for the past 20 years and proves how difficult it is to break the record on this challenging course. Several composites from Rowing Ireland were keen to cause an upset to these top two crews but the lack of time together showed as they finished fourth and fifth respectively. Portora pupil Ewan Murray was rowing in the fifth placed Irish lightweight composite and he will continue with U23 Irish lightweight trials as the year progresses.

Thanks go to our Sponsors who presented prizes for each event. Thanks goes to Powerhouse Sports, Hassard McClements, Stewarts Butchers, SD Kells, Monaghan Bros, Donnelly Group, liberty Insurance, Waterways Ireland, Blakes, Subway and Chris Allen Architects.