The fourth race of the Essex Winter Series of marathon canoeing events took place on the River Stour at Sudbury last Sunday.

The total number of paddlers was reduced due to rescheduled events elsewhere but Chelmsford Canoe Club still came out on top as overall club winners by a clear 87 points difference.

Chelmsford entered four Canadian crews, one of which retired in the windy conditions, leaving Dave Jeffery/Dave Clarke to finish second in the marathon canoe class and Bill Cozens/Richard Wallis and Alan and Joan Suttle to be placed third and fourth in the touring canoe class.

All the younger paddlers did well to finish against the strong head-wind on the return stretch.

In the U14 Girls K1, Lindsey Wilcox was best placed in fourth, followed by Laura Wilcox and Sarah Linnell in fifth and sixth all under 50 minutes.

Christopher Howe was pleased to get maximum points by winning the U14 Boys K1 and David Linnell also moved up the rankings to second place in 73.04.

Mathew Dabbs had a fine win in U16 Boys K1 in 54.52 while in U16 K2 Alex Richards/James Howe were just beaten into second place in 66.11 over the middle course.

The Senior K2's had two Chelmsford crews entered.

Dean Williams/Cheryl Dunn paired up for the first time to successfully finish third in 39.39, followed by Roger Edwards/Graham Howe in fourth place in 69.55 over eight miles.

Joanne Edwards had only one other highly ranked opponent in the U18 K1 but they stuck together until the last half mile when Joanne was left behind!

Peter Letch was first over the line in the Touring GP Senior/Veteran Class, 1min 28 sec ahead of Mark Boyd in second place.

Phil Kersey-Banks found the wind hard work, and crossed in fourth place eight minutes later while Christine Brown came fifth having opted to paddle with the men having no female opposition.

In the other GP's Veterans, Chris Gore steamed away to win but a close see-saw positioning between Mike Lewis and Dave Groves saw the latter just finish third two seconds ahead of Mike.

The Men's Veteran K1 has had one of the highest class entries throughout the series, this time loaded with seven Chelmsford paddlers, and the highest placed finisher was Barry Howe in fourth, followed by Mick Barry in sixth.

James Byam-Shaw finished strongly in ninth place in 76.34, beating Mike Head into 10th position.

Pete Moule took 88.20 to finish 11th over the long course while Roger Shrimpton, in his first race for the club, came 12th with John Brand 13th.

The Ladies Veteran class was less well supported with only two paddlers, and Mo Moule convincingly beat Di Edwards by well over two minutes after a tactical race.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.