York City Rowing Club enjoyed success at national level in the Women's Head of the River event on the Thames.

Conditions were good on the river despite hailstorms blowing over London while the boats were getting into position.

That did not deter YCRC member and Great Britain junior Caroline Jones, who stroked the Durham University BC 'A' crew to victory in the senior two boat category and finished in seventh overall.

Morvan Porteous, also currently away at university competed for Oxford University's Orisis 'B' crew who finished 33rd in a time of 20 mins10 seconds.

Just 27 seconds behind Orisis 'B', the York City Rowing Club senior three crew finished in 66th place overall, and 17th out of 114 senior three crews.

They were chased down the whole of the course by a composite veteran crew who had last year won a medal at the World Veteran Championships.

Womens captain Amanda Lockley said "They were with us for the whole of the race and we thought at one point they were coming past."

However, cox Sean Stephenson steered a good course and prevented them from passing. Moving out to overtake took the veteran boat into slower waters and York worked hard to pulled away from them in the final part of the race.

Stroke Kate Flemming said: "Now I know what it must feel like to do the university boat race side by side. We just had to keep the pressure on the whole way down the course."

The York crew will be competing at the North Of England Head of the River in Chester this weekend.

While they were in action in Lodon, competition was tough on home waters at the Yorkshire Head on the Ouse.

Wins for YCRC were achieved in the Veteran 'D' eight (York City/Bradford composite crew), and in the double sculls Veteran 'C' (Dave Grabasky/Vincent Lesur), Junior sixteen (Matt Noble/Joel Lancaster) and Women's Junior eighteen (Charlotte Richer/Anna Skilbeck).

Grabasky was racing in his first event after three years away from competition and his sculling partner Lesur had returned to York from France especially for the race.

In the single sculls, wins were acheived in Veteran 'D' (Jamie McLeod), Veteran 'H' (Dick Gradley) and Women's Veteran 'B' (Ann Homa).

Dan Beaumont won the senior four single sculls, and the senior three double with Hester Goodsell, of York University.

The men's eights competition, the final northern event before the Men's Head of the River in London, was particularly hard Both the senior two and senior three eights came second in their categories, finishing third and seventh overall out of competing 139 boats.

The Head of the River at York was won by Nottingham and Union RC.

Updated: 10:45 Thursday, March 11, 2004