Website Launch

We'd be the first to admit that DULBC's web presence hasn't be the greatest in the past few years. Whilst repeated efforts have been made by many, the long talked about "new website coming soon" has failed to materialise... Until now! If you could imagine the necessary fanfare please...

Captain Hazel O'Neill and the DULBC Committee are pleased to announce that www.dulbc.ie will be going live in a matter of days!

Freshers Week 2012

Freshers Week has been going well for DULBC with lots of enthusiastic new members signing up at the stands in Halls (Saturday) and Front Square (all week), not to mention a good collection of newbies with prior rowing experience. Sign-up continues and anyone thinking of joining the club should head along to the stand, come to Saturday's Open Day and 'like' us on Facebook for more details.

Boathouse Open Day

Saturday 20th September

Meet at the Trinity front Arch @ 1pm - we will all get the bus together.

(Or you can meet us there - here's the DIRECTIONS)

Tours of the boathouse, more info about rowing for Trinity, yummy refreshments, wristbands for the Rowing Night Out will be on sale.

National Champions!

Congratulations to the whole club, the athletes in the Intermediate and Novice squads and our four wonderful coaches for ending the 2012 season on a high as Itermediate 8+ and Novice 8+ CHAMPIONS OF IRELAND!!

Inter 8+: Franky Sheridan, Ruth Morris, Claire Cooney, Keira Buttanshaw, Suzanne Daniels, Sinead Dolan, Alice Norwood, Rebecca Dowling, Hazel O'Neill, Naomi O'Sullivan, Andrew Coleman.

Novice 8+: Hazel O'Neill, Sinead Greenan, Alice Norwood, Nicola Davies, Lucy O'Donoghue, Deirbhile Tuite, Amy Nash, Heather Crowley, Grace Gannon.

Chapter ?: In which lots happens

Soooo, it's been a while! Apologies for the lack of updates, what with Colours, the Anna Liffey Dinner, Uni Champs and the start of the regatta season we've been a little busy. Now, mostly in the form of pretty pictures, we'll try to fill you in with the news from the world of pink and black over the last few months....

Are you sitting comfortably? Then we shall begin...

Colours:

That inconsequential (haha) little set of races against UCD (gggrrrrr!) was this year held on St Patrick's bank holiday Monday, 19th April. The week beforehand the whole of Ireland got an insight into Colours rowing and Trinity Boathouse with a feature in the Irish Times STYLE magazine (rowers... style magazine... ???), the 'casual capsize' wet-look hair styles were interesting but Captain Rebecca Dowling and Vice Captain Rebecca Deasy both looked stunning for the cameras. The artistic messy pile of riggers on the other hand...

When race day arrived the Seniors in the Corcoran Cup raced hard and well but were bested by UCD; whilst disappointed with the result the crew were pleased with their performance and certain that it still promises greater things to come later in the season.

Heartache

The Novices on the other hand decided to play it cool: tantalised UCD with several changes of the lead in the Sally Moorhead race, nearly gave their supporters multiple heart attacks, and switched it on, stepped up and stormed home to win by a convincing margin in the last few hundred meters of the race! Epic.

Nice.

Congratulations to the girls who really did do a fantastic job to reclaim the Sally Moorhead for the first time in three years and in doing so prevent UCD from taking a second consecutive clean sweep. 

The winning Novice crew with the Sally Moorhead Trophy. Coach Phil Keane, Amy Nash (Str.), Nicola Davies (7), Tara Hamilton (6), Rebecca Sanfey (5), Lucy O'Donoghue (4), Deirbhile Tuite (3), Cathy Prendergast (2), Rachel Botha (Bow) and Grace Gannon (Cox).

Dublin Head

After Colours, very soon after Colours(!), came Dublin Head in which our Novice and Intermediate crews got a chance to do a bit more racing on the Liffey. The Inters stole the show as fastest women's crew of the day and got a really really big pennant for their troubles.

Ann Liffey Dinner

The day of Dublin Head was finished off perfectly with the return of our annual Anna Liffey alumni dinner to it's spiritual home in the Trinity Boathouse. Whilst a delay in being able to confirm the date meant the turn out was perhaps not as big as we would have liked, the event was none the less a great success with everyone agreeing that the company and food were equally excellent. 

It was nice to see a few of the new DULBC blazers in action, and we were delighted to present His Excellence the Coleman with one too as a small token of our gratitude for the heroic work his has done for our club over the past 5 or more years. 

Think he likes it!

Those who were brave enough finished the night off by heading into town to D2 for the infamous 'Girls on the Pull' Dublin Head night out... wasn't just the girls though...

Trinity Regatta

Regatta dresses, racing and this year actually some Pimms! One of the largest entries Trinity Regatta has seen in years (even if it was mostly J15 1xs) meant 12 hours of racing from 7am to 7pm and included wins for DULBC in the Novice 4+ (well done 1st Years!), Inter 4+ and Inter 1x. No one came out to play at Senior level so unfortunately they had to spend the day on the bank.... ah well! 

University Championships and Skibbereen Regatta

Then we all went to Cork. And won stuff. It was great. Novice 8+, Intermediate 8+, Senior 2x, Bank of Ireland and OVERALL UNIVERSITY CHAMPIONS (again!). Trinners really is for winners. On Sunday followed up with Novice 8+, Novice 4+ at Skibb Regatta and a great party back in Neptune. 

Taking home the Bank of Ireland... 

Neptune Regatta (aka. the Trinity Ball after party)

So then a brave few members of DULBC, having experienced this the night before...

... went on to WIN the Novice 8+ at Neptune Regatta the next day. Good work girls, the 'carb loading' (1am trip to the kebab van) clearly worked! 

AGM

Last but by no means least, for now, we gathered for our AGM on the evening of Thursday 26th April. Reports from the Captain, Treasurer and Secretary painted a picture of a thriving, happy and successful club to the assembled members. We have a bit of fund raising left to do this season to cover the balance of the new Swift 8+ that is soon (hopefully!) to be arriving to provide our Novice and Intermediate crews with a suitable quality racing boat, but with a bit of effort and enthusiasm we'll get there by the end of the year. We unanimously voted to introduce a brief description of the design and criteria for the DULBC blazers into the constitution and then ultimately got on to the most important business of the night: electing 2012/13's Captain. After excellent and impassioned speeches from four nominees the members were left with a difficult decision - a testament to the commitment and capabilities of so many members of our club - ultimately voting Hazel O'Neill in as our Captain Elect for the coming season. We all wish her the best of luck in putting together her committee over the coming months and leading us to many more victories in the future. 

The end. For now.

Alumni Dinner 2012

We are pleased to announce that the 2012 Alumni 'Anna Liffey Dinner' will take place on Saturday 24th March after a day's racing in the city centre for the Dublin Head of the River. We would encourage all alumni who are able, to spend a day in Dublin and cheer on the Trinity crews from one of the many vantage points along the river, before joining us for dinner which will this year be held in the historic surroundings of our very own boathouse.

Our club dinners have suffered a long exile and it therefore with particular pleasure that we invite you to return for the evening to the clubhouse from which we have all set out on our own DULBC adventures over the years. The Anna Liffey Dinner will provide an opportunity to reacquaint with old friends and crew-mates, meet rowers from across the years and chat to some of our current members about DULBC life in 2012; partners, family and friends are also warmly welcomed to join us for the evening's celebrations. The boathouse bar will open for the evening and dinner will be served accompanied by entertainment to make it a night to remember. For those wishing to let their hair down and re-live their wild boat club days(!), dinner will be followed by the infamous DULBC Dublin Head night out: Girls on the Pull, in a nightclub in the city centre. 

Further details and booking arrangements will be announced shortly, in the meantime however please save the date and pass on the invitation to as many DULBC alumni and friends as possible. We look forward to welcoming you home to the boathouse on the 24th March!

Vexed

The Trinity Boathouse was all action yesterday as a film crew descended to record scenes for an episode of BBC2's comedy cop drama, Vexed. Top class performances from a couple of DULBC extras playing 'ladyrowersinlycracarryingaboat' will be on your screens in the Autumn.

Spanish Sun

Time for another blog post to let you know how we got on in sunny Spain! A group of predominantly Inters and Seniors headed of to the airport on the 9th January to start the New Year with some warmth. Despite the very early start the thought of leaving Irish weather behind was clearly enough motivation to get everyone to the airport on time and with their passports. We landed in Barcelona to brilliant sunshine and didn't see a cloud for the rest of the week. A minibus transfer up into the foothills of the Pyrenees took us to our home for the camp: Banyoles, the site of the 1992 Barcelona Olympic regatta. 

Our hired boats, an 8+ and a 4+, were pretty good and we were on the water within a couple of hours of arriving. For the rest of the week we were living the dream rowing in Banyoles, up early for breakfast and an outing in the mist watching the sun rise, off to a coffee shop for hot chocolate soup, chocolate croissants and English Breakfast tea (where we could find it), back for huge amounts of sometimes 'interesting' lunch and then another outing before chilling out for the afternoon. The conditions remained ideal for the whole week with flat calm water to make the novices really jealous after their adventures in Blessington. We trained hard and got a good number of miles under the belt and everyone benefited from the warm weather and sunshine to banish the winter blues. We even made friends with Olympians Cedric Berrest and Julien Bahain, the French double, who gave us great insights into the life of elite athletes in exchange for some company... ANY company, that wasn't their coach of 9 years! We know who we'll be cheering for on the 2nd August. 

Sunrise through the mist

Flat calm conditions

Winter Training Camp

DULBC's first and second year novices are in Blessington this week to kick start 2012 with a winter training camp. Despite high winds and a few 'little' waves, the crews all got onto the water this afternoon after arriving this morning. Staying in Avon Ri on the shores of the Pollaphuca Reservoir gives us an amazing opportunity to train twice a day on miles of open water. The first year novices are excited by their first trip away from the congestion of Islandbridge and the second years are enrolled in 'Sculling 101' - for some improving skills learned over the summer, and for others the chance to scull for the first time.

Wrapped up warm in Blessington.