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All race reports for Neil Morrison

Event: May Bumps 2001 - Wednesday
Posted as: I hate Chris Tarrant
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The prestigious and enigmatic 1st and 3rd IV (featuring the bow-four all-stars) were today chasing Homerton I, who were in turn chasing LMBC IV. Chasing us were Pembroke III. There was a slightly uneasy atmosphere in the boat-house before the race, as we were warming up along side the Homerton guys, most of whom were considerably bigger than us. However, our knowledge they were basically a boat made up of clumsy PE teachers was reassuring.
A nice brisk row down to the start left us with only two minutes after we had spun before the gun went, but this was probably a good thing. Our start was very controlled considering it was the first day of the Mays, and we made some ground on the Homerton boat. However, our hopes of achieving a giant-killing over bump (and thereby in some sense gaining revenge on the PE teachers for all those laps of the playing field we were made to do at school) were ruined by the arch-enemy, Maggie 4. Yes folks, they were shit. They had all the grace and finesse of Bernard Manning and were equally inept at rowing. They were bumped just before Grassy, but luckily we had anticipated the occurance of just such an eventuality, and our practice row-overs ensured that we had the confidence to do what was now required. By the time Homerton bumped, we had moved considerably clear of Pembroke 3, and with the two boats ahead of us gone, it only remained for us to row over, which we did comfortably, with a ~15 length lead of Pembroke at the Railway Bridge. In order to save energy for the big effort on Thursday, we took the rate down, and floated gracefully and casually past all the admiring women's crews on the bank. At least I think they were admiring us... perhaps it was us that were admiring them. Anyway, Henry's call of "Looking good for the ladies" was greeted with mixed reaction from the bank.
Having demoralised Pembroke 3 by such a commanding victory - we were still increasing our lead even after we took the rate down - we should have no problems from them tomorrow, and will be able to concentrate on pasting the Maggie 4th boat. The only thing that could prevent us doing so is if Homerton send down someone feeble from M3, and LMBC hit them before we can bump. Should that happen, a repeat of today's race will follow.

Event: May Bumps 2001 - Saturday
Posted as: I hate Chris Tarrant
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Twas brillig and... etc.
Well, we knew we were in for a long hard row-over ahead of Corpus II, but the we were likely to cope better with the rain. In fact, I'd say that row-over was the best race I've rowed in (at least it felt that way). They gained about half a length early on, but we held them off, and as soon as we got into the reach we knew we had broken them. As we strode away, the Corpus coach could clearly be heard telling them "new race" as they were trying to avoid blade-hunters Clare. We won comfortably in the end, and Clare didn't get that close to Corpus, so the top three were unchanged.
Unchanged, that is, unless we could bump Magdalene II. Having been the boat semi-responsible for making us miss blades (although arguably it was Homerton for being too good) we knew we could get them, and they couldn't catch anybody ahead, so we had the whole course to do it.

Event: May Bumps 2001 - Saturday
Posted as: I hate Chris Tarrant
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Henry's cox box ran out on the row down, but through helpful bank partying, and consolidating calls of "controlled..." in the boat, we were able to coordinate bow four with stern four anyway, and we ground Magdalene down with a big effort. Magdalene probably earned their spoons overall, but they gave a decent fight today.

Event: Lent Bumps 2001 - Tuesday
Posted as: Neil Morrison
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Having experienced a distustingly greasy and lukewarm fry-up in St.John's cafeteria along with our cox, followed by some unneccessarily dull maths lectures, I strolled down to the boathouse, meeting our six man Peter Skorov along the way. As we walked along the bank past the boathouses, we were inspired by the sight of Ian (the boatman) hoisting the flag, which somehow waved resplendently in the grey miserableness of the afternoon weather.
We progressed up the stairs to be informed by Guy (somewhat less than resplendent in his lemon jumper) that we were exactly 8 minutes late, but since this meant we were 27 minutes early, it didn't really matter. The changing room was alive with the smell of mouldy kit, but more importantly, with the pre-race atmosphere of "we're going to win".
After a comprehensive warm-up/stretching session, and a crew chat with our coach Kirsten, and also Guy and Neil the lower boats captains, we concluded that although we would probably bump them fairly early, we should focus and make sure we could respond to any outcome.
So we got the boat out, and did a nice little fours warm up
(the traditional call of "next stroke, stern four out, bow four in" was as unsuccessful as always). The row down felt very nice (the boat was well sat) and also the practise start we did was very smooth and fast. We continued on, looking as hard as possible to scare the other crews past the "little" bridge, spinning, and banking at our station.
The four minute gun was surprisingly loud, but at least their timing was accurate, and we prepared ourselves, keeping calm, and making sure all equipment was working. On the one-minute gun we removed our excess kit, and with ten seconds left we were assembled nicely at frontstops looking efficient and organised.
GUN!
Our start was pretty good, probably about 9/10 (where 10 is the best one we've done) and we felt that we'd really gotten good value out of it. Christ's III (who were chasing us) started well also, but there was still a noticeable shift away from them. Queen's III (who were our target) were as diabolical as expected, and it didn't take long before the whistle's could be heard from the bank. In total, we took about 35 strokes to catch them (more than John Earl's prediction of "between 6 and 10"). However, the most interesting part came when there was a little confusion about what to do after the bump. The cox-box was quiet, and the first bow four knew about it was when Queens shouted "oi! stop! you've bumped us already!!".
We knew we had to hold it up, but Christ's III were not particularly far behind (we had increased the distance on them, but post-bump, they cam up pretty fast) and all sorts of calls were being shouted, which resulted in us rowing on to early and too fast. Queen's III did a similar manoeuvre (or at least, couldn't get out of the way of ours) and suddenly there was a mighty cracking sound, as the bow of our newest boat Peter Brandt had a hearty meeting with the bank. The damage was quite substantial, but Queen's III's predicament was by far the funnier: their bow had rammed clean through a rotten tree stump, and their boat was sitting bow-up, stern in the water, with the bow jammed through a hefty looking piece of wood. A real Kodak moment.
The damage turned out to be quite bad, and bow pair had to walk back carrying their blades, while stern six, complete with greenery-based-wreaths, rowed home.
Final verdict:
Rowing wise, very very good. But I think we may have to use a different boat tomorrow....

Event: Lent Bumps 2001 - Thursday
Posted as: Neil Morrison
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Gunnar's just disappointed because there are no whales in the Cam for him to hunt, and there isn't enough snow for him to go Nordic skiing on the toe-path.