Stockton On Tees 2019
5th of May was our first race of the season at Stockton On Tees hosted by Powerhouse Dragons. We'd only had one month of training under our belts at this point and several Barracudas were missing from the day, but we enjoyed it nonetheless. Gathering together under our gazebo, which actually was just a holding point for all of our bags of goodies, snacks for energy and plenty of water, we settled in for a day of jumping in and out of boats!
We were short on numbers so our boat looked pretty much the same throughout the race day for both the 200m and 500m races, thanks to fellow Barracuda Lauren Sykes for pulling in some extra paddlers with her GB Under 24 team mates to help fill our boat. Racing was tough with the wind against us for most of the day and we almost missed a race if it wasn’t for an accommodating BDA official who bumped us into the next race.
Youth members of our Barracuda family joined forces to race in a few Youth heats on the day too and they did us proud. We also had great pleasure cheering on our friends from the Netherlands who had travelled over to race and we were delighted they squeezed in a quick Yorkshire training session with us at Doe Park the day before.
Wath Upon Dearne - September 8th 2019
Following on from a successful summer of festival training and with our competitive spirit in full flow, we were delighted to race at Wath Upon Dearne with Team Manvers hosting the BDA Day in a gloriously sunny Rotherham.
The Barracudas were out in force complete with brand new members that had joined us throughout the season ready for their first competitive BDA event. The sun was shining, the temperature was hot and by the end of the day there were a fair few pink faces from both racing and the sunshine.
Our new summer recruits put us in a very lucky position for us to complete a club first - we raced our first Ladies only boat!! It was a proud moment for The Barracudas and one that we hope to replicate and build on next season.
It was lovely to see members of our crew helping out on the day too with helming and drumming duties, us Barracudas like to get stuck in and help where we can.
Team Manvers were great hosts for the event which saw all 3 Yorkshire teams race with less than a second separating the teams all morning - the 200m Final was one to watch. Congratulations to Team Manvers who just beat us to the line 0.43seconds ahead of us, what a fantastic effort for such a new club on their home turf.
We managed to pull one back in the afternoon with the 450m but again with only a second between us we can see some great racing ahead with a little bit of #Yorkshire tittle tattle between clubs along the way!
And no racing event that we attend would be the same without our famous Warm Ups and Cool Downs. Proud Mary is a must and the Cha Cha Slide always works well…. And we can only race if we have our Race Glitter on!
