The Club's Results

Grrr. Chaos reigned at the start as everyone attempted to row in their own time. Poor old Prith was buggered, being halfway through a stroke to line us up at the gun, consequently fell off his seat.

Was almost amusing watching from bow, until the seriousness of things dawned.

Still, we're going to be better tomorrow... Honest.

Tom -- sod this 'bumping back' malarkey -- eyes on the overbump ... ;) (Stu)

The first couple of wind strokes felt ok from the front of the boat if not completely together. The draw started to fall apart.
We never really strode and the boat speed fell, and despite getting the timing back together a new push never happened and we slowly caved to a boat we shouldn't have caved to.

Lets go out tomorrow, heads up, push off the start and aim for a bump back (Thomas)

Churchill ahead bumped out early on pembroke - now down 2. We pushed off an unlucky homerton and held it together, just, until the end. (Thomas)

Much better row- unfortunately Churchill bumped out so fast that we never got a chance to have another go at them.

However, at least we avoided our disaster start of yesterday, while chasing Homerton headed straight for the bank. They gained on us at first but we just about held them off at a bit less than a length.
A combination of a Homerton crab and a good line from Emma round Ditton meant that we could finish the course in relaxed style.

I'm happy not to have had to race down the reach, which was as nasty as the bermuda triangle on a bad day.

I should add that this is my first head-to head race ever in which my crew avoided the worst possible outcome. I have to say I'm delighted! (Charles)

I'm not sure I'd call it relaxed, but we didn't panic -- certainly a good, solid rowover.

Now let's bump Pembroke (?) before the M'way bridge... :o) (Stu)

Charles, that's just not true. As the coach of last year's 5th VIII headship crew I'd like to point out that on three separate occasions you rowed-over ahead of the lock. And good work on retaining that headship this year! (BJ)

Good work - even better than yesterday! At the risk of doing a Bullock, I think that's the first time a FaT 5th Lent VIII has bumped since 1998...! (BJ)

I've not checked, Bryn!

It was a good row though. Decent start and they moved well away from Homerton behind - despite them pushing off properly today. Round the first corner we had the first whistle, the 2nd came around the Little Bridge, 3 whistles under the Motorway Bridge. Overlap and the bump happened just before the Gunsheds. Homerton took quite a while to come past! Back where they started - and a good chance of getting CCAT tomorrow for an up-1 for the week. (Richard)

"Draw 4! Wind 1! Wind 3! Wind 4! Wind 8!..." :o) (Stu)

That was almost too easy after yesterday's race! The most satisfying thing was that we pulled nearly a length off Homerton in the short time it took us to bump.

This sets us up nicely for another go at CCAT- hopefully no disaster starts this time! (Charles)

The first Bump for 8 people in the crew... including one person on his 7th attempt. We are maintaining our 5th headship in style. The bump was a sweet reward for the row over in front of a closing homerton yesterday.

The race was far more comfortable than yesterday. the rating after the stride - for about 15 strokes - was lower than normal and felt better for it. As we gain in confidence we are improving.

Its payback time for CCAT for escaping on the first day after we were bumped. Churchill are faster than CCAT and homerton will get pembroke behind us leaving them no escape... (Thomas)

Congratulations guys! Knew you had it in you, well done on a good term's rowing, glad to end it on a high. Looking good for Mays! (Martin 'Fantastic Catches' Yarr)

A good start. Inside station to the motorway bridge where we got a length call. We were thinking it was going to be a long row.
A bit of spacking but CCAT had crabbed. 2 whistles and then 3 quickly followed. A last push led to a concession just before first post corner. (Thomas)

Very satisfying result. We had a tidy start this time, although with somewhat more conventional calls than on Friday. We closed steadily and CCAT started flagging well before first post. If only we'd done this on day one! (H. Braviner)

We had the measure on Fitz III from the very start but unfortunately - as seems to be our nature - seeing another boat coming up towards us got the better of us, heads went down as did the speed. Tomorrow with clear water behind us - i'm sure we can claim back from Eddies what is rightfully ours, and give them back their title of arse of the river! (Slacker)

Sorry guys, no pictures of you yet - you can blame BumpIT! I'll be sure to make it down in time to see you tomorrow. (Martin)

Good row today guys - congratulations on retaining the 5th VIII headship for another day. Those thirty-five strokes you took before hitting carnage were well worth the row down to the lock and back :-D

In all seriousness, you looked smooth and in control today. Here's hoping for a good race on saturday and that long overdue bump on Jesus (even if they don't park it like they did today). (Albert)

That was surely our shortest race... Anyway, I think we got into quite nice pace and rythm - were it not for the carnage under Motorway Bridge, we might have at least make Fitz nervous...

This Saturday - making Jesus IV get their well deserved spoons. (Mat)

Well, while the race was somewhat short, at least it snowed on the way back... (Cakeman)

After a strong start, when we pulled to within half a length of Emma III, we were unable to hold off a strong CCAT crew, who bumped us before first post corner. (Andy)

The fifth VIII were starting off in front of Sidney III who had bumped St. Edmunds I yesterday as a result of the latter forgetting their life jacket and not being allowed to row. Thus it was anticipated that they would quickly bump back. However, this was not the focus of attention. The boys themselves had quite a good start and held distance. The stride failed to materialise, and it took alot of of cajoling from the cox and bank party to settle into a race rhythm. This was achieved by about First Post, but by then Sidney had moved up to about 2/3 length (St. Eds were nowhere to be seen). Once the good race rhythm was established, they bagan to pull away again, and were just outside distance going down Plough Reach. A little confusion as to where the finish was (from us) and a big push (by Sidney) saw them close to within a length, but we held on through both posts and on into the reach until some SUs persuaded them to take it down. A great row over, and Emma III had better watch out tomorrow (they were bumped by CCAT II in front). (Tom Rose)

We were starting of behind Emma III, who had been bumped by CCAT II yesterday, and in front of Sidney III who we rowed over with yesterday. We made a good start, settling in to a race rhythm much earlier than the day before. Sidney didn't manage to get as close to us as yesterday, and were bumped by Caius IV, close to the motorway bridge.
Emma made a better start that when we chased them on Tuesday. We gained on them slightly down first post reach, but they proved themselves the faster crew finishing about 4 lengths ahead of us. (Sam)

Apparently, it was later suggested by LMBC that we had cheated by changing the crew. "How else," they asked, "could you have bumped us back after we bumped you last week?" Simple really:
a) You're Maggie.
b) We had increased the number of outings as a crew by 100%.

As bow, I had the pleasure of shouting at their cox to acknowledge. Which they then did... (Simon)