As summer faded, a single sculling mania gripped Sons of the Thames Rowing Club. We vets abandoned our quads and doubles for the gladiatorial challenge of the single - and jolly tiring those Saturday morning outings became. 

Speaking as the sap writing this piece, I hadn't done a Scullers Head before and wanted to compete in one before I move on to the challenges of Crown Green Bowling.

Jan was there too, after a summer in the single mostly acting as pace boat to Cat Hart; as was our Chairman Baldwin of the flowing stroke and Les who's won enough pots for Sons to equip a pub.

Faith was competing in her beautiful Stampfli, recently reclaimed from the above mentioned Hart, as was Ed Hillyard who has been placed in or around the top 100 for the last three years. 

So there were seven of us in the log-jam of singles floating down to the start, Colin's cheers of encouragement at Mortlake carrying above the ominous clonking of spoon on glass fibre. 

After the crush of queuing it seemed quite peaceful going with the stream in the middle of the river and I struggled to find my race rhythmn. It wasn't until Barnes Bridge that I was joined by my regular companion Mr Pain and started to settle down, the flash of orange Lee Rowing Club spoons in the corner of my eye giving me a target.

Happily, I struggled past the other competitor outside the club, cheers from the pontoon adding at least half a pip to my rating. And then it was just that watery road of pain down to Putney, and a big effort to pass another couple of boats before the line. 

As it turned out I was placed 211th which, need-less-to-say was not good enough to beat Ed Hillyard who was well out in front at 123rd. There were some good performances from other Sons too, often achieved without a lot of physical conditioning which shows the technical skill that many have.

The Sculler's Head is a strange way to spend a morning, but I think I may be there again next year. 

Let's just get this out of the way, your reporter arrived at Hammersmith Bridge too late to see our first men's VIII finish the race. Clearly, they hadn't factored photographic opportunities into the race plan and rowed too fast.  

As Rory commented: "We were only 11 seconds off the IM3 pennant - and it was easily achievable. Fourth, and the top club, in IM3 is good - and we would have been eighth out of 16 in IM2 (third club behind Scullers and Vesta in IM2) - had we raced the category above. It is all very promising for this season, especially as we are still three or four rowers short in the top boat."

Our second IM3 VIII was a "let's have a go" scratch crew but they were not humiliated and managed to beat local Tideway rivals Cygnet and Parrs Priory. Less than a minute behind on overall time, our men's novice VII burst out from under the bridge wearing their new all-in-ones and some serious race faces. They beat four other novice VIIIs in their first race and showed massive commitment - as did the womens' crew. With one member ill, an injured athlete showed a lot of grit in taking her seat. Cox, Andrew Maunder, was called on to show some steely resolve of his own in bringing an almost unsteerable boat to the finish. Well done everyone, lots of promise for the season ahead.