Fifteen Stortford club members raced in the final event of the 2025-26 Winter Series. The weather was damp and overcast but not cold for the time of year. The team secured 4 silver medals and 8 bronzes, and was placed third overall (84 points) behind Chelmsford CC (100) and Leighton Buzzard CC (92).

8 miles:
K2 Men - Rich Winstanley & Jamie Winstanley 3rd (1:04:09)
K2 Mixed - Ben Tubby & Kerry Tubby 3rd (1:16:36), Dave Cayford & Jacque Cayford 5th (1:33:29)

K2 Ladies - Kerstin Queeney & Catherine Shirley [EAL] 2nd (1:16:54)
K1 Senior Men - Joe Fitzpatrick 2nd (1:18:07, Jamie Bond 3rd (1:26:18)
K1 Vet Men - Robert Gough 6th (1:25:55)
K1 Vet Ladies - Zoe Norford 2nd (1:30:39)
K1 u18 Men - Eddie Kirtland 2nd (1:18:01)

See

• Full race results and series results (FRA website)
  
• Simplified results on the MRC website
  
• WS League table 
  
• Photos (Angela's Google album)

Over the course of the series, 31 BSCC members took part in at least one race. Nobody made it to all six races, but Petr and Ben competed in 5. 

BSCC did not make it onto the top three teams this year, which were Chelmsford CC (60 points), Leighton Buzzard CC (47) and Cambridge CC (45). Stortford ended the season with 44 points.

BSCC did win The Dick Grieve Trophy, which is based on a separate league table calculated exclusively on the the points won by unranked juniors (i.e. Div 9 and below), thanks to a long-standing rule that the trophy cannot go to the club which wins the overall cup. Therefore, although Chelmsford won 46 DG points, the cup goes to Bishops Stortford (42 points).

The other club cup in the WS - the Bob Porter Trophy  - goes to the club with the greatest participation in the under 12s classes across the series. Stortford were second (11 seats taken by under-12 across the series), behind Chelmsford CC (14).

Given the recent weather conditions it was not entirely surprising that it was only the most dedicated Stortford racers who elected to take part in the penultimate Winter Series race at Chelmsford, and this number was reduced further by several members falling ill.

Even so, the conditions in the narrow channel through the town were extremely choppy, with a tight turn at the far end. 

The day naturally went to Chelmsford CC who made up the vast majority of the competitors (100 points), followed by Cambridge CC 2nd (58) and Leighton Buzzard CC 3rd (55).

Petr is now guaranteed to win the C1 advanced trophy, while the Tubbys and Summer are both level-pegging with their respective rivals for the Mixed K2 and u12 Girls trophies.

See

• Full race results (FRA website)
• League table 
• Photos in Angela's Google album 
  

Petr won C1 advanced on the 8 km course with a time of 57:37 - five minutes ahead of Robert Passmore of Tonbridge CC. When these two were head to head at Maidstone the previous week, it was Robert who took gold by a narrow margin.

See

• Full race results (FRA website)
• League table 
  
• Photos: Rimantas's Dropbox folder and Angela's Google album
  

7 miles (2 portages):
K2 16+ Men - David Gurney & Scott Leblanche [BAD] 5th (1:14:02)
K2 16+ Mixed - Ben Tubby & Kerry Tubby 2nd (1:22:37), Claudia Redeker & Jamie Bond 3rd (1:26:49)
K2 16+ Ladies - Kerstin Queeney & Catherine Shirley [EAL] 2nd (1:22:16), Christine Meula & Karen Bradley 4th (1:32:46)
K1 Vet Ladies - Zoe Norford 2nd (1:46:21)

Both the Mens K1 and Ladies K1 course records were broken. William Stroud of (CLM) shaved 30 seconds off the previous best time set in 2014 by Keith Moule by finishing in 53:17. Ladies races only moved to this distance in 2023, with the fastest time of 1:19:08 set by Tori Elliott-Moulden (CLM) last year. Two paddlers beat that this year. Rebecca Perrin (CLM) finished in 1:17:40, but the new record holder is Lauren Avery (CLM) with a time of 1:13:23.

Joao was our fastest singles paddler, winning gold in Vet Men K1.

The Boys' K1 record on the 3 mile course also fell - Marco Mangiantini of Royal CC beat the time of 25:57 set by Ali Kabeer in 2019, by finishing in 25:15. Summer won gold in u12 Girls, Clio took silver in u14 Girls and Rupert was joint third in the hotly-contested Boys u12 race. In the same race, Alex T won the medal for fastest under-10.

3 miles (1 portage):
K1 u14 Boys - Joshua Luksan 6th (41:46)
K1 u14 Girls - Clio Thompson 2nd (40:57)
K1 u12 Boys - Rupert Kirtland 3rd (32:09), Alex Thompson 5th (40:44), Benjamin Spinola 6th (44:37)
K1 u12 Girls - Summer Norford 1st (40:38)
K1 Open - Sebastian Lane-Watkins 5th (38:21), Connie Colgate 6th (39:07), Georgia Leisegang 7th (43:52)

The overall winners were Chelmsford Canoe Club (100 points), with Bishops Stortford CC second (97) and Leighton Buzzard CC third (70).

See

• Full race results and series results (FRA website)
• Basic results (positions, times and promotions only) on the MRC website
  
• WS League table 
• Photos (Angela's Google album)

Over the course of the series, 25 BSCC members took part in at least one race - but only Rupert, Eilidh and David G made it to every event. In addition to those who won series awards, special mention should be made of novice paddlers Zoe and Jack L who raced four and three times respectively in the new K1 Open class.

Only a few Stortford paddlers braved the extremely cold conditions to take part in the Chelmsford Winter Series race, which comprised one, two or three laps of the River Can through the town centre.

Chelmsford were the overall winners, with Cambridge 2nd. Due to the small size of the team, BSCC were a long way behind, just managing to stay ahead of Leighton Buzzard to take 3rd.

Chelmsford were also first for points towards the Dick Grieve trophy. Here, Leighton Buzzard were 2nd and Stortford 3rd.

See

• Full race results (FRA website)
• League table 
• Photos (Angela's Google album)
  

Very few of the dozen Stortford paddlers who made the journey to the Winter Series race hosted by Barking & Dagenham club would have done this race before, as this was the first time it has taken place since 2017.

Almost all the Stortford paddlers won medals. There were golds for Jasper and Summer to add to their growing collections. Silver medals went to the new pairing of David G & Eilidh, and also to Ben T (who was also awarded one of Barking's "swimmer" stickers). Rupert won a bronze, Kerstin was  a 1st Supervet (in Ladies K2 with Catherine), and Jacque & Dave were 1st Ultravets in Mixed K2. Zoe won her first Winter Series medal as First Lady in K1 Open.

The only finisher not to get a medal was Kerry T, despite an excellent effort and a second place. Current WS rules restrict silver and bronze medals for the adults and older juniors on the basis of the number of entries.

BSCC came 2nd behind Chelmsford CC's inevitable 1st. Crucially, however, Stortford came ahead of Cambridge CC (3rd), so are now only one league point behind them.

See

• Full race results (FRA website)
• League table 
• Photos (Angela's Google album)
  

Well done also to Jack L, who successfully completed his first away race!

BSCC was 3rd with Leighton Buzzard CC, behind Chelmsford CC, and the home team Cambridge CC. The same pattern repeated for the Dick Grieve points.

See

• Full race results (FRA website)
• League table 
• Photos (Angela's Google album)
  

A somewhat depleted team of 10 made their way down to Maidstone for the second race of the 2024-25 Winter Series. Nevertheless, six of these went home with medals.

David G and Eddie earned bronzes as in the Mens K2, after gaining a good position in the mass start of 17 doubles boats.

8 miles (1 portage):
K2 16+ Mens - David Gurney & Eddie Kirtland 3rd (1:07:08)
K1 Senior Ladies - Eilidh White 2nd (1:32:39)

See

• Full race results (FRA website)
• League table 
• Photos (Angela's Google album)