Women's Eight Head of the River Race

The lists for the clubs eligible for the Small and Medium Club Pennants for 2022 are now available:

Usually, these would have been published earlier and any queries would have needed to be submitted by the end of December. Due to the delay in publishing the lists this year, we will be accepting queries up until the 31st January 2022.

Updates to pennant criteria will follow in the next couple of days, and entries will be opening shortly. Continue to watch this space!

This post was updated on 2nd February 2022 with v2 of Small Clubs list

The committee are still finalising some of the entry categories. You will appreciate that this has been harder than normal due to the lack racing over the last 18 months. Watch this space and our social media channels for updates of when entries open and close.

Happy New Year!

Our Strava club is now up and running and some people have started to log their training sessions. If you’ve not used Strava before, it’s really easy to set up a free account and start logging.

The Zoom Ergos #NotWehorr2021 event is now live on their website. If you’re new to Zoom Ergos, you’ll need to log in to register for the event. Remember, we don’t expect everyone to have an ergo to join us for the session. We’ll be updating with more specifics closer to “race day”.

We’re really keen to get as many people as possible involved. We want to see and hear about the training you’re putting in, so make sure you tag us on your social media posts.

The WEHoRR Committee are pleased to announce the format of this year’s #NotWehorr2021. We are inviting everyone in the WEHoRR community to take part in a virtual event kindly hosted on the Zoom Ergos platform.

We want everyone to be able to join in. If you own an ergo, great you’ll be able to row, but we’re also encouraging people to make use of whatever they have at their disposal, whether thats on a bike, in your running shoes or even bodyweight circuits in your living room!

We’ve organised a line up of rowing celebrities to provide the pre-race briefing over coffee, and guide us down the course. The virtual Hammersmith Bridge has been fully reinforced and will be open to navigation! Although we can’t make up for the real thing, we hope this will be a fun and energising alternative on the 6th March.

For those of you who can’t join us on the day, we’re also running a club on Strava for people to use to log their training in the run up to the weekend.

More details for these will follow shortly!

Update: Details as promised!

It is with deep sadness that the WEHoRR Committee must announce that the 2021 race has been cancelled due to the ongoing lockdown. With little prospect of a significant relaxation of the restrictions before the race date, it is unrealistic for us to continue to plan for a race. We have considered postponing to a later date, but feel that this would clash with the usual racing calendar. Having had to cancel the last two races due to the weather, we share everyone’s disappointment that this is going to be the third year in a row that we can’t race the distance.

We will be back in 2022 when we hope that the Hammersmith Bridge issues will also have been resolved so that we can race the Championship Course as usual.

In the meantime, we are looking at options for some form of #NotWEHoRR2021 to mark race day and get as many of our WEHoRR family active together, so stay tuned!

The Women’s Eight’s Head committee are currently considering options regarding running the 2021 WEHoRR. Due to the current situation, it is required that races have a COVID officer and we are therefore looking for someone to potentially fulfil this role. Information about this role is contained in British Rowing’s Guidance. If you are interested, please contact Guin Batten.

The Women’s Head exists as a not-for-profit event, where all proceeds are reinvested in developing the event for the future. Unfortunately, the race incurs many of its costs up front, regardless of whether the event proceeds on the day.

In light of the cancellation, the committee has taken the decision for the race this year to be cost neutral, and rather than retain and reinvest the surplus as normal, to return it to crews in the form of a partial refund on their entry fees, with the exception that we will absorb the cost of the 80th Anniversary buffs that we hope everyone will enjoy wearing. We feel that this is a fair outcome for both competitors and the race. 

The refund will amount to £57, being 48% of the entry fee. Refunds will be processed through BROE in due course. Apologies for the slight delay under what you can probably understand are challenging circumstances for everyone. We hope everyone stays safe and we see you in 2021.

Due to marshalling restrictions and the need to clear the course before the end of the designated PLA river closure, the number of crews allowed to participate is limited and we are unfortunately only able to open the invitation to the crews who featured in the amended draw published last Thursday.  There is no expectation that crews will take up this offer, but it exists for those without other plans who may wish to take advantage.

Please note that this is not a replacement for the original 2020 race and crews will race solely for time within the HORR. All rules, safety and marshalling instructions will be controlled by the HORR. No WEHoRR Pennants will be awarded based on these results, however athletes will be awarded PRI according to their finishing position. Results will be published to the WEHoRR Facebook page.

Crews may make substitutions that take them over the 50% rule only on the understanding that this cannot take them below the 100 CRI cut-off and must not be more than 6 members of the 9 changed in total.

For clarity, as this is not a replacement race, the start order for the top 50 crews in the 2021 Women’s Head will be based on the finishing positions from the 2018 race.

The HORR details regarding marshalling and safety are available from http://www.horr.co.uk/wordpress/competitor-information-menu/

WEHoRR is facilitating the coordination of the crews in the time trial and BROE2 will be open for substitutions – this is very important given PRI will be awarded for the time trial.

Eligible crews have already been contacted – please complete the form that was sent out regardless of whether or not you want to race. The form will end after a couple of quick questions if you elect not to take part. The deadline for completion is preferably 8pm on Friday 13th March but definitely by 12 noon on Saturday 14th March.

Final information will be provided to those crews who have accepted the invitation by Monday 16th March.

The PLA flag has unfortunately changed to Red which means that we have no choice but to cancel the race. We are as disappointed as you are.

Please bear with us over the next few days. We know that the question of refunds will be on many people’s minds. We cannot give any answers until we have confirmed details. Please don’t chase us for this – we have a lot of work still to do and we will let you know as soon as we can.

The PLA flag is currently Yellow but there is a high chance that it may turn to Red at their next review at 6am tomorrow morning. If that happens then unfortunately the race will be cancelled as it is a condition of our use of the river that we will not run the race under a Red flag. We will confirm the situation here and via social media as soon as we can after 6am. If possible, please check before setting off for the race. Obviously, we hope that the race will still be on but it is now out of our control.

Please can all competitors note that the Yellow flag signifies strong fluvial flows. This will make marshalling more challenging than usual. It also means that everyone should prepare for the row to the start (and home afterwards) to take longer than usual and therefore allow significantly more time when boating.

The start marshals will also be leaving slightly larger gaps than usual between crews, so listen carefully to their instructions.