With a full trailer of boats arriving at Totnes Regatta on Saturday, Dartmouth Rowing Club had a medley of entries followed by a good weekend of racing.

In comfortable racing conditions, the crews made an excellent effort in the second regatta in the West of England series.

With the regatta spread across two days, the first day had crews sprinting over 500m, which brought several victories for Dart­mouth.

First up in his J13 scull, Torin Peel won both his heat and final by an easy distance.

This was closely followed by the ladies’ J15 scull, with Alice Mid­dleton winning her heat and rowing on to second place in her final.

First senior sculler for the day was Will Cumberlidge, who won his heat in the men’s senior C scull and went on to race in the final against Taunton where he lost by just a canvas.

This was soon followed by Jess Middle­ton in the ladies’ novice scull straight final.

Jess led from the start and, putting in one last push as she approached the line, finished in first place.

In among all the scullers, Dartmouth put out a single junior quad on the Saturday, with the crew of Torin Peel, Ol­lie Smith, Lewis Sha­ram, Will Hitchen and cox Marie Lang putting in an excellent effort.

The boys led from start to finish in what will hopefully be the start of many successful races for them this season.

These were exciting first wins for the three boys racing their first regatta season.

Sunday brought slightly more confusing weather for racing, but Dartmouth had a good day nonetheless.

First up was Torin Peel, who won his heat in the men’s J14 single scull, going on to take third place in the final.

This was closely followed by the ladies’ J16 quad in their second-ever race, who rowed brilliantly but unfortunately came second in their heat to the overall winners of the category, Castledore.

The club’s junior boys put on another brilliant show, with two Dartmouth crews in the first heat of the men’s J16 coxed quad, separated down the middle by a Totnes crew.

Both crews rowed excellently, with the B crew of Jordyn Wat­kins, George Bakewell, Alice Middleton, Tom­my Stewart and cox Tess Preston unfortunately lacking their usual crew member, but still rowing an ex­cellent first race. Their competition in the other crew was Torin Peel, Ollie Smith, Lewis Sharam, Will Hitchen and cox Marie Lang.

With them rowing into third and second respectively, the A crew went back down to the start to row the repechage, which they won, and then went on to take third place in the final.

The most exciting race of the day for Dart­mouth had the whole squad cheering on single sculler Will Cum­berlidge in his men’s senior C race.

After a tough heat against Gloucester, he led from start to finish over the two Plymouth scullers, with a final big push at 100m to the line Will got his first win at senior C, and now has five point towards the WEARA Champion­ship, putting him out in front.

Club captain Yorkie Lomas was delighted at the weekend’s results; an excellent start to the season.