UCD wins Most Successful Club at Dublin Head

UCD Boat Club began the 2009 racing season with a strong performance at the 65th Dublin Head of the River, winning the ?Diana Cooke Trophy? for Most Successful Club for the first time since the Head began, the Men?s Senior and Intermediate VIIIs, and the Women?s Senior and Novice VIII categories.
The club fielded 6 Men’s and 4 Women’s VIIIs with UCD’s Men?s Senior VIII placing the fastest time of the 36 crews entered, finishing the 3.5km course in 12mins 33secs, 7 seconds clear of Commercial RC who finished in 2nd place. This allowed UCD Boat Club to retain the overall Head pennant for the 2nd year in succession. The Women?s Senior VIII also won their category with a margin of 2 seconds over Commercial RC.

The men?s Intermediate VIII also won their category in dramatic fashion, after picking up a 10 second penalty for being late to the start, meaning that their winning margin over Neptune RC was just 0.15 of a second.

The club?s new Novices also had their first taste of competitive racing with 4 Novice VIIIs entered. All crews put in a solid performance with the 1st Men?s Novice VIII finishing 2nd in their category and the Novice Women winning theirs.

The next two weekends will see the Men?s Senior squad competing at the Irish National Squad Trials in Newry on the 21st / 22nd February before heading to London on the 28th to train and race against Oxford University’s Isis crew in the build-up to the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Races.