The Club's Results

Although no one said so, the nerves ran high. For almost half the crew it was our first race in the top division, but nevertheless we had confidence that we would be able to catch Downing over the course.  (Jake Rowe)

After a solid warm up on the ergs we took to the water looser than yesterday. After a slightly stop-start warm up we hit the P&E. Things appeared to be running more smoothly here than yesterday. With a slightly more lax attitude we hit the reach, with cheers for us left, right and centre (except for the centre- no other crews shouted for us, understandably). Some houseboat decided to get in the way. The race start was solid past a more crowded Plough than yesterday, and we held the rhythm well through to station 5. The lack of pressure from Downing helped us settle our nerves and focus on the task at hand - nailing Jesus.  (Tom)

We got got. (Barney)

So close. So so close. (Jake Rowe)

First day of bumps, nerves are always high. With carnage in the M2 division, as we pushed off we were notified there would be no practice start. Despite this, Clare ahead of us decided they were special enough to do one anyway. We had a good warmup before pulling in, ready to wait for the gun. Before I knew it, we were being pushed out and the gun went off.  (Imogen)

Clare gained some ground down First Post Reach, but from Grassy onwards W1 began walking away. A solid row saw the girls cross the finish inside station on Jesus (who had overlap on Emma throughout the second half of the course but never made the hit) and with Clare nowhere in sight. (Yining)

Shame girls, GET THEM TMR!!!! (B. Kesek)

We made a mistake today, not to be repeated. Our plan - find our rhythm and push from there. Heads in, and we can go from there. (Imogen)

First half of the race looked much like yesterday, except this time Clare were prepared and we were not. Not the result we wanted today, but many lessons were learned. You're fully capable of bumping Clare back tomorrow -- believe in your rhythm, stick with each other, and you'll fly! (Yining)

Yesterday we rowed badly and got bumped. Today we rowed well and got bumped. It's sad both ways, but I'm happy with how we raced today, and that makes things a bit easier. (Imogen)

Visibly more confident that yesterday, W1 set off ready for any eventuality but determined to row on their own terms. Before the start, Millie cracked such amazing jokes that Iain threatened to boycott the push-off. The station 6 outflow distracted us a little but fortunately gave us no trouble. (Yining)

Unfortunately, due to injury and exams, we had not been able to get the full race crew together for many outings after the first few weeks of term, and I think this prevented us from fulfilling our potential in terms of getting the power down together and making the boat move.
Nevertheless, we gained on Darwin M1 from the start of the race, but Downing M2 also gained on us (despite having seemed noticeably slower than us when paddling). This movement continued until Downing M2 unexpectedly stopped rowing and were then overtaken by Corpus M1.
It seems that most of our crew hadn't realised that we were gaining on Darwin M1 and when the pressure from behind was removed our commitment flagged and we let them move away again. After about half a minute there was a klaxon due to a dangerous incident ahead.

When we were allowed to proceed, Downing M2 and Darwin M1 went home but we and Corpus M1 were informed that there would be a rerow and were made to wait near race control. This was apparently because Downing M2 had said that they stopped because someone on the bank had shouted at them to hold it up, and the umpires felt that they needed to honour this to encourage good safety habits. This was annoying for the club because last year when First and Third M1 stopped in similar circumstances there was no rerow and a bump was instead awarded against them.

Furthermore, the rerow was scheduled for a later time and our 6-man had to leave before then, so we needed to find a sub and none of the obvious choices were available at such short notice. Eventually we set off towards our starting position with 7 rowers in the boat (rowing quarter-slide-ish in sixes with our 5-man carrying two blades). Michael Thornton kindly agreed to sub in even though he had not been training and the vacancy was on the wrong side for him.

Thus in the rerow we had a lot of anger and not much respect for the situation, and knew that we had to try to make something happen off the start. We set off and kept the rate high with no stride, and managed to hold off Downing M2 for much longer than anyone expected, making it onto the Reach, but were eventually bumped. Then Michael needed to leave and we rowed back to the boathouse in the same comedic configuration as before. (Chris E.)

Soon off the start, Downing II started gaining on us rapidly. In the face of this threat, we did not stride it down from the starting rate of 40. Nonetheless, by the middle of First Post reach, Downing II closed to an overlap of about 1 metre, and maintained this overlap until they held it up about 30 seconds before First Post corner. No contact had occurred and our cox did not concede, but it appears that Downing II heard someone (not an umpire) shout "hold it up", stopped rowing and started celebrating. (Peter)

A solid row in front of a faster crew. Fantastic steering from Emily through the corners prolonged the race past Ditton, but M2 fell to Corpus on the straight, just before the Railings. Definitely more to give -- greater commitment in response to pushes from behind should yield a favourable result tomorrow! (Yining)

Today we had a sub (though in a much more planned manner than yesterday) and the comedic rowing with 7 rowers yesterday was probably also not the best preparation.

In the race I again feel that we were not managing to translate our underlying ability into boat speed and Downing M2 and Corpus M1 both went faster than us. We had better lines around the corners than Corpus M1 which gained us some distance but we were caught quickly on the Reach.
(Chris E.)

I had high hopes that as the week progressed we would be able to find more speed and I think this did begin to happen today.

We moved up half a length on Corpus M1 off the start and then sat there for some time. However, when the boats behind us bumped out and we didn't have anything to push off it seems that (as on Wednesday) we slowed down and Corpus M1 moved away from us substantially. We wound it down when they eventually bumped Downing M2.
(Chris E.)

We knew that Clare M2 were going to be very fast, so our plan was a total sprint off the start to try to catch Downing M2. Also we were finally getting two consecutive days in the same crew and I think we had made substantial further gains in underlying race pace.
Thus off the start we went quite a lot faster than both Clare M2 and Downing M2 and I was thinking that the revenge bump was actually going to happen.
Unfortunately we were still not fully in time on the recovery and one thing that had remained a concern during the warmup and the approach to the starting position was balance: we were not sitting the boat well and it was lurching rather chaotically from side to side.
As we got into some choppy water this got worse and finally a crab was caught. We recovered from this but it had brought an end to our absolute sprint and despite a valiant effort to bring the boat speed back up we were caught fairly soon by Clare M2.
(Chris E.)

Rest of division cheated by hearing the cannon. (Preeyan)

We rowed in yellow and blue today, to the consternation of some of the spectators who voiced their sadness that we weren't in pink again.
Under the mistaken impression that there were cameras pointed at us, we rowed down comparatively prettily. It later turned out our bank parties had lied to us to get us to stop spannering.
We did a fairly beastly start and gained rapidly on Hughes Hall M3, intent on punishing them for overbumping around us the previous day. Approaching the motorway bridge we started rowing fairly terribly as we entered their wash, but all those pre-season pull-ups and deadlifts and bicep curls allowed bow 4 to muscle us rapidly into HH's stern as we went under the bridge.
Clearing the river was a bit awks, but otherwise it was a rather fun and rapid race.
(Alex)