This weekend sees the return of Reading Rowing Club’s Small Boats Head to the River Thames for the first time in two years, with just under 500 crews taking to the water across three divisions. The Open Sweep events are chockablock with local schools and rowing clubs, prepared to battle it out for the fastest times across a 3500m course.
The Fours
Division one kicks off with the fours: Open Coxed, Junior 18 Coxless, and Junior 16 Coxed. Across the junior categories, Abingdon School Boat Club and King’s College School Wimbledon appear dominant, certainly seeming to set out to race the majority of their senior squads this weekend. The top Abingdon coxless four contains half of the outfit that placed fourth in the B-Final of the Championship Eights at the 2025 National Schools’ Regatta, while KCS presents a crew who, although appearing to have perhaps not spent so much time as a unit, each bring their own experience – including one half of this crew having picked up bronze in the Championship Coxed Four at National Schools’.
KCS also boasts NSR A-Final experience across their J16 coxed fours, with a number of rowers having raced for the top spots in the J15 eights, or second eights, in 2025. Accompanying the London locals in the draw are two crews each from Abingdon School and Reading Blue Coat School Boat Club, with Wallingford Rowing Club, Lymington Amateur Rowing Club, Emanuel School Boat Club, and Kew House School Boat Club rounding out the roster with one crew apiece. The Lymington ARC entry comprises the same four athletes who placed second at the Ball Cup South and second in the B-Final at NSR in 2025. Experienced as a unit, this crew could certainly be one to watch as underdogs.
Both Radley entries for the J16 Coxless Four see returning members of last year’s J15 first eight, as is a similar scenario in the KCS camp. Radley inched out ahead of KCS at National Schools’, but when steering the narrow bends of the course, it is all to play for for both crews. In the J17 Coxed Fours, KCS also presents a lineup reminiscent of NSR – all four of the crew rowed in the KCS J16 first eight at the National Schools’ Regatta, narrowly missing out to St Paul’s in the final to clinch a silver medal, well ahead of the likes of Radley, Abingdon, Eton, and Wallingford. I certainly wouldn’t be surprised to see this outfit take the win in the J17 Coxed Four category, but they may well have Reading Blue Coat to contend with on their home water.
The Pairs
Across the J17 pairs, Abingdon has split down into smaller boats, a picture reflected in the J18 category. It’s all to play for in the older boys’ pairs, and Radley College Boat Club and Eton College Boat Club also make an arrival for the later divisions. The Open Pairs are similarly chockablock with Radley and Eton names that will have raced fours in the morning. Radley College demonstrated incredible depth last season under the guise of Paddy Duggan, taking a haul of medals home from the National Schools’ Regatta across age groups, featuring in the final of the Princess Elizabeth Challenge Cup at Henley Royal Regatta, and adding several GB vests to the roster across the U19 World Rowing Championships and Munich International Regatta. It’ll certainly be exciting to see how their squad is shaping up in the early part of this season, and I imagine that the top pair of Cherry-van Der Werff and Duggan will come out on top of the Open Pairs too, while the J18 pairs will more likely swing in the favour of Abingdon School.
It’s great to see strength and depth in small boats so early in the season across all events, and having the likes of Abingdon, Radley, and Eton face off against one another over a middle-distance course should provide an interesting insight into how their respective seasons may begin to play out.
