MORE than 800 rowers made a big splash on the River Wye at the annual two-day Monmouth Regatta as they launched out in 433 boats. Heavy rain beforehand and on the Saturday saw tricky conditions with a rising river and fast stream, and the finish had to be moved 100m upstream for Sunday's 750m sprint to prevent the expensive racing shells getting caught on Wye Bridge. Competitors from 33 clubs from as far afield as Falmouth, London, Ironbridge and Bournemouth attended the Monmouthshire Building Society-sponsored event, with Old Monmothians successfully defending their Phil Mathews Invitation 8s title, named after their former school teacher and regatta commentator. Wins over RGS Worcester and Reading University set up a final with Cardiff University over Saturday's 1500m course, and the old boys came home 3L to the good to take the pots. Even more vintage former Monmouth School crews also took to the water for a reunion rowpast, in the shape of the 1969 crew featuring 1980 Moscow Olympic medallist Charlie Wiggin, who showed the 1976 'youngsters' the way home in a 500m dash. Haberdashers' Monmouth's eight beat Hereford by two feet before falling to Reading University in the ladies feature event, the Alec Woods 8s Plate, named after Monmouth RC's former president. But the college students then crabbed in the final to gift victory to City of Oxford. Monmouth Rc's veterans, fresh from gold and silver successes at the British Masters, also showed Reading's students the way home in the dusk dash mixed 8s for a barrel of beer, winning by two feet despite giving them nearly 30 years a man. Monmouth Comprehensive School's British U16 single sculls champion Emily Richards landed four trophies over the weekend, taking girls' U18 quadruple sculls with Lauren Clarke, Tasha Bradley and Bethan King, and U18 girls' singles over 1500m, plus IM2 and IM3 women's singles in the sprint, as her club took 11 trophies in all. Oliver Pearce took U18 boys' singles on day one, while Bethan King and Molly James took girls' U18 double sculls by 1/2L from a clubmates' duo and James Williams and Cameron Bradbury beat Cardiff and Vale by 2 1/2L in boys' U15s. On day two, Charlie Burge, Taylor Strawford, Seamus Cooper and Ben Matcalfe took U18 quads by 2L from Swansea City, while Zoe McCarroll, Bethany Tattersdill, Briony Waycott and Megan Jephcote landed the girls' equivalent by 1 1/4L from the same club. And at U15 level, Ben Main, Alex Bennett, Bobby Scott, David Newman and cox Emily Richards won the boys' event by 1/3L from Llandaff, and Ellen Bates, Hannah Kay, Alice Richards, Alice Edwards and cox Lauren Clarke won the girls' final. Although Monmouth School's top squad were at the National Schools' Regatta, they still had too much firepower for Cardiff University by 1L in the IM3 sprint 8s final, while Virginia Fellow and former US junior 8s cox Elliot Oakley and Kiwi gap year student Isaac Zarifeh took novice doubles from Hereford, and the school also landed IM1 pairs from Staines. Host club Monmouth Rc took five wins including over 50s fours from Gloucester, over 42 novice fours from Evesham and mixed double sculls. Tom Penny returning from a bad back injury won sprint elite singles and Hope Henry saw off her Worcester opponent to take girls' U15 singles.