First and Third Trinity Boat Club
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General Items of Interest

Does the Cam freeze?

Yes, the Cam does freeze, and has done recently. 1st and 3rd Ltd turned up early for a training camp in the Lent term 1997, only to find there wasn't any water to row on.

Frozen river by the boathouse

Then captain, Dan Darley, was away trialling with the University Lightweights, but Kevin Backhouse and the youthful future captain Matt Arnold did some research, and used the club's trailer to take boats to Clayhythe to row on the section of river below Baits Bite lock. (The river was clear of ice below the out-flow at the motorway bridge.) The club enjoyed (?!) several days rowing, before other clubs and CUCBC worked out what was going on and banned it, in the name of being fair to less resouceful college clubs! Everyone had to cycle all the way to Clayhythe for each outing....

Outings below Baits Bite

More prolonged than this was "The Big Freeze" of January - February 1991, when the Cam remained frozen for 3 full weeks. It saw the death beneath Pembroke footbridge of one of Sidney's coxes, Kelvin Pollard, when he went through a thin patch of ice which then slid back over him. Boatclub members at Trinity saw all the commotion downriver but had no idea of what was going on until hours later.

Rather worryingly, the previous day had seen Lower Boats Captains Ollie Price and Charlie Allen cycle from the 1st & 3rd boathouse to the (now disappeared) gasworks...on the ice!!!!! This was quite an incredible feat, and one could watch the ice cracking behind them as they went. Terrifying.


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