Five crews from Chelmsford Canoe Club met at Newbury for the second race of the Waterside Series on the Kennet and Avon Canal where perfect weather conditions saw three course records broken by crews from Bradford-on-Avon.

Chelmsford's junior K2 crew, Christopher Howe/Alex Richards, committed themselves to their furthest distance to date, covering the 17.5 mile circuit in 3 hours 9 minutes 16 seconds, placing them 15th.

They even slipped under a low bridge which is normally portaged, thereby gaining on the Chelmsford ladies crew who ran the long portage.

This made for a sprint to the finish line after the final portage where Chelmsford junior ladies, Joanne Edwards/Cheryl Dunn managed to get away first but the boys caught them with 100 metres to go and took them by a length on the line.

The ladies time was 3hrs 9mins 20secs, giving an exciting finish and placing the girls second in their class.

In the senior K2, there were 36 starters with Carl Williams/Dean Williams finishing 12th in 2hrs 32mins 15secs having paddled strongly throughout without mishap.

The two Chelmsford Veteran crews reached the turnpoint at Aldermaston within two minutes of one another.

However, Roger Edwards/Graham Howe could not reduce the time difference on the upstream slog back to Newbury to gain on Mike Head/Mick Barry who were placed in 16th but only 19 seconds ahead of Edwards/Howe in 18th place, reversing their positions from the previous event.

The third Waterside race starts at Pewsey in two weeks time with the Hasler event at Huntingdon this comong Sunday (March 19).

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.