The 2015 Henley Royal Regatta featured a twin Imperial celebration: success on the water and naming new boats for the Imperial College Boat Club.

The Imperial College London and Tees Rowing Club crew were comfortable victors in the Princess Grace Challenge Cup on Sunday 5 July.  This women’s quadruple sculls event featured Imperial rowing scholar Melanie Wilson (Medicine) who represented Great Britain at the London 2012 Olympic Games.  Melanie also reached the final of the women’s eight Remenham Challenge Cup.  

It was a frustrating day for other teams from the Imperial College Boat Club and Sport Imperial who entered a number of other competitions, only to fall to narrow losses against world-leading crews.  

Left to right: Professor Alice Gast, Eleanor Smith (Captain) Stuart Whitelaw (Coach), Bill Mason

Alongside the regatta, the Boat Club invited Imperial’s President, Professor Alice P. Gast to name a boat Alice Gast in honour of her appointment as the College’s President.  The boat has a distinguished history having been used at the Beijing Olympics in 2008.  A second boat was named in honour of Bill Mason at the request of former Rector of Imperial, Sir Richard Sykes, who recently made a generous gift of £20,000 in support of rowing at the College. The naming of the boat after Mr Mason recognises the instrumental role that Mr Mason played in the development of the boathouse in Putney and the many titles that he won at Henley with the Imperial Boat Club.

This draws to an end another successful year for the rowing club.  In this year’s British Universities and Colleges Sports (BUCS) competition, Imperial finished 4^th nationally and Tim Richards (Medicine) and Michelle Vezie (Physics) both won Gold representing Great Britain at the World University Rowing Championships in September 2014.

Read the full results from the Henley Royal Regatta 2015

Photos courtesy of Ian Gillett, Henley Women's Regatta and Sport Imperial