Racing the Head of the Charles Regatta for MS Australia

04/11/2022

Wellbeing

On Saturday, 22 October 2022, David Rayment SC competed in the Head of the Charles rowing regatta in Boston, MA in a coxed four. He and his crew from Leichhardt Rowing Club are used this event to raise funds for MS Australia. The crew has been training for this event since December 2021.

With members help, they have raised $26,079 for MS Australia and we are currently the second largest fundraising effort on MS Australia’s 'Kiss Goodbye to MS'. platform. If you wish to donate, you can still do so by clicking here.

Result: the team finished 4th out of the 19 crews that qualified to enter the men’s 40+ coxed four event, completing the 4,702m course in a time of 17 minutes and 32 seconds holding 32 strokes per minute and an average split of 1:51/500m. They overtook one crew early on and caught two further crews at the finish all of which made for an exciting race. Video footage of the last three minutes of the race from the stern of our boat is here.

The coxswain: Ruth Kelly, steered a beautifully efficient and precise course, occasionally with mere inches separating the oars from pontoons and corners of bridges. Here is a GPS record of Ruth’s course (starting at the green dot on the right).

The boat: they were fortunate to be lent an R46 Empacher coxed four for the race. Empachers are high performance boats made by a family owned and run business in Germany. They are usually reserved for elite crews at national and international levels so it is not an understatement to say that the crew getting a chance to race in this boat was a bit like seeing a unicorn.

Detailed race results are here.

Ex-elite competition from Harvard

The gap between the crew and second place was something another year’s training might be able to close, but the winning crew from Harvard Alumni club Ex Nemo was beyond reach. They in fact set a new course record.

Ex Nemo’s motto is "Ex Nemo Non Feces" and true to that rather unapologetically direct motto, the crew included Henrik Rummel (bronze in the US coxless four at the 2012 Olympics), Michael Blomquist (gold at the 2005 world championships in the US eight) and Henry LaPage (stroke of GB’s under 23 eight in 2010 and Harvard’s Assistant Coach). Hats off.

Thank you

For a group of rowers, there is little better than belting down one of the world’s most famous courses knowing that our community had raised thousands of dollars for a great cause. Win, lose or draw, that effort was locked in.

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