The Vesta Veterans International Eights Head of the River Race is a rowing race held annually on the River Thames over the Championship Course. The direction in which the event is raced changes from year to year, dependent on the time of the tides: some years it is raced from Mortlake to Putney other years it will go the other way. It is open to veteran (also known as masters) eights, who race in categories determined by the average ages of the eight rowers. The race always takes place on the day following the Head of the River Race.
It is organised by Vesta Rowing Club.
Famous quotes containing the words veterans, eights, head, river and/or race:
“To the cry of “follow Mormons and prairie dogs and find good land,” Civil War veterans flocked into Nebraska, joining a vast stampede of unemployed workers, tenant farmers, and European immigrants.”
—For the State of Nebraska, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Time has an undertaking establishment on every block and drives his coffin nails faster than the steam riveters rivet or the stenographers type or the tickers tick out fours and eights and dollar signs and ciphers.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“Solitude is impractical, and society fatal. We must keep our head in the one and our hands in the other. The conditions are met, if we keep our independence, yet do not lose our sympathy.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The river sweats
Oil and tar
The barges drift
With the turning tide”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.”
—Bible: Hebrew Ecclesiastes 9:11.