Melbourne Head and Elle's birthday

Last Saturday, November 19, was the eagerly awaited (by me, anyway) opportunity to watch Jessye row in her first race of the season with the Mercantile under-23 women’s eight. The race was the Melbourne Head, a 4km race on the Yarra downstream to the Prince’s Bridge boatsheds. It’s not a side-by-side race but timed with boats released about 15 seconds apart. It was going all morning with categories ranging from school-age single scullers, pairs, fours and eights right through the elite categories up to the masters for the oldies. Jessye’s crew were one of five in the Women’s Eight Open. Their main rival was the crew from the Melbourne University Boat Club.

It was a rather dismal, grey day with fairly constant rain but at least it wasn’t too hot for the rowers. Peter and I tried to find a good vantage point along the course and found one about a third of the way along where we could shelter under a bridge. We showed up in time to spot Jessye and her lot loitering by the river’s edge making their way slowly up to the start area to wait for their turn to race. All the crews were drenched from sitting out on the river in the rain for about an hour or so wandering up to the start and then racing.
Finally, after a long wait we could see the boat bow numbers creeping up towards 194, Jessye’s, and then their red-bottomed uniform came into view. They were underway with their coaches in matching red jackets keeping a watchful eye on them from the bike path above the river on the far side.

At one point there seemed to be a gaggle of blokes on bikes interested in them. We watched them go under our bridge and out the other side then ran to the car to try to catch them further down the course.

Peter found a parking spot and we caught them as they went past Rod Laver Arena into the CBD.

By the time we drove to the sheds they had finished the race and turned around down stream to return to the sheds. At this point Peter and I left since I had an afternoon concert to get ready for. Because it was a timed race, we didn’t know the result immediately but Jessye called to let us know they had won, beating Melbourne Uni by a decent margin, I think it was 15 seconds. A good result and good practice for the big one coming up next, the Head of the Yarra, a killer 8km upstream timed race from the city boatsheds to Richmond.

On Sunday, November 20th, we all went to Eleanor’s place to celebrate her 25th birthday a day early. Jo, Ian and Will met us there. Hard to believe Will’s now 28 and Elle’s 25!