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All race reports for Michael Thornton

Event: Cambridge Autumn Regatta 2012 - CRA IM3 VIIIs
Posted as: Thornton
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Interesting things happen when all 8 put their blades in the water around the front end; things get even more interesting when all 8 are capable of putting their blades in together but randomly fail. Making up the majority of the inexperience in the bows it was nice to row in a boat with some power, especially being sat in the ergmonkey seat at 65kg. It could have been a little smoother and a little more stable but it was certainly the most fun I've had in a boat in a long while. My personal highlight of the race was being highly confused by and not being able to coordinate catching at what seemed to be about 9/10ths slide. That, and seeing Chesterton's faces when they were somewhat forcefully informed they were racing us, previously on the (ever so slightly inflated) draw to race CRA Senior.

Event: Peterborough Summer Regatta 2012 - W IM3 4+
Posted as: Thornton
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An unfortunate first off cam race for Angela. Off the start it was clear we weren't the fastest crew in the heat, but it looked like we might not be the slowest. We sat about one seat up on Sheffield for the majority of the race, maybe taking another temporarily during a push around 500m. But in the end we lacked cohesion and we suffered for it. With no second gear for the finish, we lost our lead over Sheffield and came 4th. Seeing as we had nothing else to do, we naturally decided to have an outing. Subbing Adam Dougall at stroke we went a-paddling. We only nearly capsized twice in the process.

Event: May Bumps 2013 - Saturday
Posted as: mt
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meh, wind. nothing much going on ahead, nothing much going on behind. we tried to stay reasonably in contact with Catz incase Priya crashed into control or something. no such luck. sometimes a 6:35 average isn't fast enough.

Event: May Bumps 2013 - Thursday
Posted as: mt
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more headwind

Event: May Bumps 2013 - Friday
Posted as: mt
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Maggie need to stop rowing in that stupid hudson with its stupid fin/rudder combo and actually bump Jesus, preferably yesterday - then we can hit them, Jesus, tomorrow.

Event: May Bumps 2013 - Wednesday
Posted as: mt
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fucking headwind

Event: Cambridge 99's Regatta 2013 - 1st division
Posted as: mt
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Technically a little scrappy, but when rating 4 pips higher than in any sustained piece so far I suppose that's to be expected. We took about 2 seats in the start then steadily moved through them up the reach. On 3 man we had a move which took me to bow ball. Then we hit the railway bridge. With the corner to their advantage, they took a huge lift. We tried to respond but didn't gain much speed for it. Julia thinks the corner was worth 1/3 of a length, they gained 1/2 a length. Then they got stuck, and soon enough we had crossed the line and won.

Event: Cambridge 99's Regatta 2013 - 1st division
Posted as: mt
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This was fun. On stroke 18 I had bowman, there isn't really much else to it. As the gap opened it got heavy with our victory fairly clear, so we brought the rate down to about 29 to allow people to get the legs on with lower power output.

Event: Cambridge 99's Regatta 2013 - 1st division
Posted as: mt
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The instructions claimed the finish line was the bumps lower finish, but since the two lower finishes are the start line and the railings we (mainly me) decided 99s had cocked up and mistakenly called women's top finish (the usual regatta finish) lower finish. Naturally they had cocked up, as did we in deciphering this cock up, which prompted general laughter as we crossed the finish line ahead of Jesus.

Technically this was our best race, underrating Jesus whilst walking through them over the course. Apparently put the blades in then push is good advice.

Event: Champion of the Thames Eights Head 2013 - Men's 1st Div. Mays
Posted as: mt
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Having come off our practice start on a seemingly sustainable split that would have us destroying Downing's course record, we were incredibly surprised to be hit a massive head-gust coming around Ditton during the race. Despite claims to the contrary however, we were not slower than W1. Bore off Dougall.

Event: Cambridge Head-2-Head 2013 - 1st Mays
Posted as: mt
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A rather arhythmic downstream leg and a rate cap meant that we only beat LMBC Lents M1 by 3 seconds. We still beat W1 however, unlike M3...

Event: City Sprints 2013 - Men's Mays Division1
Posted as: mt
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If I shout swans strokeside, you're going to have a bad time.

Event: Lent Bumps 2013 - Saturday
Posted as: Thornton
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We went into this race with the attitude that we would bump Queens' somewhere around Ditton or die trying...and we died, hard.

Event: Lent Bumps 2013 - Saturday
Posted as: Thornton
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A single word is too long - maximum length 58 characters - last bit is so-much-overlap-their-7-man's-blade-got-fully-stuck-under-our-bow

Event: Pembroke Regatta 2013 - 1st division
Posted as: Thornton
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Having given Caius quite an audible shock in our race against Downing, we knew there was no surprising them. We arrived at the start line with some of the crew still trying to catch their breath, the encroaching evening laying a very silent river. The marshals spent quite a while getting us lined up (and rather insistently 'straightening up' Caius - I feel they knew what they were doing Pembroke...), clearly expecting this race to mean something, and then we started. We held Caius in the start, we may have even edged slightly ahead; that's what happens when you're the underdog. We found our rhythm easily enough, still holding them. And then we realised just how much force of will beating Downing had taken. Caius started to pull away gently. At the railway bridge we would have an advantage. We waited, and then we tried to move, but we had nowhere to go. Caius remained ahead, and we were beaten.

Oh, one more thing, it is seemingly possible for both stations to take constantly diverging lines down the course.

Event: Pembroke Regatta 2013 - 1st division
Posted as: Thornton
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Our chance to practice our start against not-M2, and my chance to explore the other side of the river in hopeful preparation for the final. Our start was demonstrably effective, the bounds of my water were less clear. Meadowside really is a bitch, the Bumps line fucks with you. Oh well, we were far enough ahead that it didn't matter, and I was now prepared to deal with the final should the need arise.

Event: Pembroke Regatta 2013 - 1st division
Posted as: Thornton
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Having practised bumping us during marshalling, multiple times, nothing gave me more pleasure than to see Jesus edge slightly ahead in the first few strokes. They had gone off hard, and they were going to blow just as epically. We started to move through them about 10 strokes in, then we quickly opened up clear water and sat there. The rest of the race was uninteresting.

Event: Pembroke Regatta 2013 - 1st division
Posted as: Thornton
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An intense race. From what I remember, Downing gained slightly off the start, but we moved steadily through them up the Reach ending up a few seats ahead. At the Railway bridge they took control again, taking back our lead with the inside of the corner and moving ahead by a seat or two with a push. We kept to our rhythm and held them. Coming into our advantage around Morley's Holt, we stepped it up and began our battle. In the words of Neil, "Yeah boys, yeah, moving on your corner, yeah, yeah, you are going through them boys". Through them we went, just. Ming maintains we won the race by sheer force of will. I can't wait till we meet them in Bumps, knowing we are faster whilst hopefully remembering how to row.

Event: Newnham Short Course 2013 - Lower VIIIs
Posted as: Thornton
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We had a plan to chain at 28, a reasonable plan for an M4. Turns out we don't like 28, we much prefer short slide 32 instead. A really committed race in parts, as the result shows (11th M3/M4/M5). Well steered by Catarina for her first time taking the Bumps Line at rate - not even close to crashing! With a bit of technical work we'll be able to move the boat far more efficiently, and hopefully retake our permanent position in Lents.

Event: Newnham Short Course 2013 - 1st division
Posted as: Thornton
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The best thing about this race was that it was pretty bad, yet we still beat all the 'slow colleges' by quite a way. In Bumps M1 clearly has nothing to fear from behind, the focus is all about how far up the charts they can move. The race was supposed to be focussed on cementing the changes we'd suddenly made last outing. Instead, Catz M1 caught a crab in First Post Corner and it quickly became all about getting past them as safely and efficiently as possible. Rather unhelpfully we went a little wide around Grassy coming into an overtake manoeuvre with overlap on the inside line, luckily Matt's forearms just about survived tanking us around. Down Plough Reach it was get past them or lose the line around Ditton, so we got past them...just. We had to couple a push with some slightly aggressive cutting up to rescue the corner. By this point everything was a frantic mess and all people seemed to care about was doing what they could to fuck off into the distance...no cohesion. Perhaps a saving grace, once we'd struggled up to the kink everybody committed to building for the finish and we got a little surge in speed and a stupid "We <3 Newnham" t-shirt for our efforts. We're capable of going a lot faster; bring on Bumps.

Event: Cambridge Head-2-Head 2013 - 2nd Mays
Posted as: Thornton
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I seem to be getting very good at overtaking Champs in Ditton, crashing whilst doing so, and yet still winning a pot...

Event: Fairbairn Cup 2012 - Senior VIIIs
Posted as: Thornton
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In many ways this was our first race against the other colleges this term; we were in selected VIIIs, and everybody would be racing in the same division. Caius M1 hadn't race on cam all term, and all we could really tell from previous races was that Downing had been 6s faster over 2.5k with an overtake. Since then we'd swapped stroke and 6 gaining us both length and rhythm, and so it was, in our minds, all to play for.

We had a gutsy race plan. Attack the first minute, push off everything remotely landmarky and bomb it from the motorway bridge. Our technical focus was simple: rhythm off the back end, blades in, legs down. We put everything into executing the race plan. An inexplicably effective up 1 down 1 and an unexpectedly close Green Dragon bridge made us hopeful, but it just wasn't enough to get top 5. And yet there is nothing we could have done differently to make up 15 seconds. It was, we all agree, a fair representation of where we currently are.

But, don't expect M1 to go down 1 up 1 in Lents. I know, from a brief encounter with Black Prince M1, that, as a senior squad, we have so much free speed to gain by simply doing less. If training camp and next term are approached with the same willingness to achieve as Fairbairn's, I will expect nothing less than up 2. How much do you want to help LMBC on their way to spoons boys?

Event: Fairbairn Cup - IVs 2012 - Invitation IV's
Posted as: Thornton
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My tendons still hurt from trying to steer away from the bank.

Event: Christmas Head 2012 - 4x+
Posted as: Thornton
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Having scared the shit out of the J17 girl starting ahead of us on the row down through the immensity of our bowman, a rather concerned looking coach came to ask us if we would like to go off one place early. Naturally we declined the offer, preferring instead to spend the maximum amount of time marshalling in the freezing cold so as to give us an excuse should we be beaten by a novice 1x. We compromised, promising to give her a huge gap such that we would not have to overtake. Thanks to our cox's game of chicken with the inside of Chesterton however, we caught up rather quickly and so took the rate down slightly...to 22. We wound for the finish once we had a clear line, but the ridiculous marshalling situation had done its damage. Next year we shall endeavour to request a change of division time to June so as to avoid another farce.

Event: Cambridge Winter Head 2012 - Student Senior VIIIs
Posted as: Thornton
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A solid performance with a particularly gutsy 1st minute, and stoic push after push up the reach into the head wind. Even with potentially adverse weather conditions, the dominant inter-division variation was one of stream. An upstream lock was open for some divisions, then closed for the rest. All we care about from the results is that, in our division, we were 6 seconds off Downing. That's 6 seconds we certainly intend to take back by Fairbiarn's. If we can paddle away from them, we can certainly race right through them.

Event: Cambridge Autumn Head 2012 - College VIIIs
Posted as: Thornton
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After the cock up entering our "matched" VIIIs into separate categories, being the crew with the slower erg we took up the mantle of M2 hungry for victory. An earlier outing in the week had demonstrated that, if we all committed, the rowing wasn't terrible and so we were determined to go all out and show Jonathan's Mother what we were capable of. That's exactly what we did. We took it straight up to 31 into the start and sat there for the course. Ahead of us, a Champs IM3 8+...not for long. By Ditton they were very much in our way and refusing to/failing the understand the need to move wide. We took a good half a length in the corner then sat there for a while. After a responsive reset for a steering mishap we moved up to 1/3 length advantage coming to the kink. Needing to cross we upped the pressure and walked the rest of the way through them in ~15 strokes. Off the bridge, phase 3: gun it, straight line to the finish...almost. After recovering from another steering mishap around the P&E, we began to lift it for the finish and crossed the line with a time just 5 seconds behind Jonathan's Mother, a gentle reminder that ergs don't float.

Event: Lent Bumps 2013 - Wednesday
Posted as: Thornton
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Summary for now:
Quicker than Queens' off the start.
3 boat sandwich fairly imminent.
Overlap in the Gut/Grassy.
Queens' go so wide they need hand-assisted steering.
(Iain questions umpire over potential technical bump in Grassy.)
Horrendous wash down Plough Reach makes effective rowing pretty impossible.
Looks like 2's blade will have stern contact.
Queens' do some pushes down Plough Reach, keep just off us.
Queens' escape wide around Ditton, slowly moving away.
The wash has done it's damage, we fall back.
Queens' bump LMBC, we steer to avoid.
Queens' clear in the direction we have steered, we hold it up.
We start rowing again but the Chief Umpire fears we will kill LMBC so stops us and awards a technical row over.

Event: Cambridge Winter Head 2013 - Student Senior VIIIs
Posted as: mt
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Technical outing with midrate piece. Hit target split exactly.

Event: Lent Bumps 2014 - Friday
Posted as: mt
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Pembroke gained in the first few strokes of the start, but by the end the transition had been opened back up and slightly increased. At this point, the two crews seemed to be moving at fairly similar speed. In First Post, an ill recovered dodgy stroke and a wide line allowed Pembroke to gain significantly. Down the gut we again seemed to be moving at a similar speed. Around grassy Pembroke got their bows inside our stern but stuck. An initially wide line was turned into a tight exit in a gutsy if unintentional move that could have ended the race had Pembroke pushed and steered out. Out of Grassy, Pembroke sat with overlap as we pushed out of the corner. A final push from them ended the race. Had we had the best race of our short rowing lives, we might have rowed over but it's difficult to say. Once Pembroke appeared to be moving on us in First Post there was apparently a slight feeling of "that's us bumped again in 15 strokes" within the boat. Only out of Grassy was there a realisation that this wasn't necessarily the case. Tomorrow, our last day, we're faced with yet another unknown. But, once again, we know that they are slower than today's competition. Whether we end up with spoons or otherwise, I'm sure that tomorrow will be our best row of the week. I'll just be glad that this week is over so that we can get back to serious training; Catz Cardinals is but a few weeks away and Primark are stocking some seriously sexy bras this season.

Event: Lent Bumps 2014 - Thursday
Posted as: mt
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LMBC went off hard at a pace that was, simply put, greater than our max. It is somewhat unsurprising that LMBC might have gone off a little lighter on the first day in an attempt to avoid the carnage of Jesus on us, and that, therefore, we were bumped so quickly. Tomorrow we are being chased by Pembroke. We know little about them, as with LMBC, other than that they are probably slower than today's adversary. They do have somebody pretty handy at stroke though. I'm confident that we will at least make it around First Post corner, and from there I am expecting a fight. I'm not, however, entirely sure how the crew will cope when, for the first time in most of their lives, their legs start to hurt in a serious race situation.

Event: Lent Bumps 2014 - Wednesday
Posted as: mt
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We did our duty for Captain and Club.

Coming on board with M1 having been 50s off Jesus in Fairbairns, I am not exactly surprised that we were bumped as quickly as we were. Indeed today was written off on day 1 of term. The more experienced members of the club have continued with their hiatus, such that we have approx 2.5 terms rowing/person in the boat, and indeed there are two novices from last term in the mix.

Closing the gap on Queens' to 3/4 of a length by the time we were bumped was a nice surprise. I've been so preoccupied with how quick Jesus were going to be that I forgot the general standard of college rowing is awful. Queens' had 30s on us in Fairbairns, and closing the gap really does speak volumes about the progress the crew has made over the past 5 weeks.

Tomorrow shall be interesting. Jesus could very well bump Queens' before First Post corner if not by Head Station. If we steer through the carnage successfully, we should have fairly clean water (sorry guys but the overbump on Caius just isn't going to happen). We seemed to be comparable in speed to LMBC so there's a good chance we will row over if we row well. Having said that, this is Bumps we're racing. Maybe Caius will lose a rudder...

Event: Christmas Head 2013 - 4x+
Posted as: mt
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A significant improvement on last year's 9:17, despite the severe crab outside Downing.

Event: University IVs 2013 - Light IVs
Posted as: mt
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500m re-row down the Reach, unfortunately not side-by-side

Event: Cambridge Winter Head 2014 - Student Senior VIIIs
Posted as: mt
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This was fun, though I was definitely not smiling during the race, despite supposed "evidence" to the contrary.

Event: May Bumps 2015 - Saturday
Posted as: mt
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Challenged with a repeat of day 2.2 we had reviewed our previous attempt at over bumping Magdalene M3 and agreed that over a longer course we could have made it, so all we had to do was go a bit harder. So that's what we did! We managed to take an extra length and a half or so out of Magdalene before Ditton compared to our previous attempt, and it looked like it was on. Unfortunately, we then lost a lot of speed around the corner and as we came out it seemed that we had lost almost all of the extra ground we had made up. The fact is that experience does play a part in bumps, and with such an inexperienced crew, with so few outings behind them, something was bound to go. We slowly edged back into them up The Reach, and moved up a lot in our final sprint, but crossed the line just inside station.

Any other crew boys...any other crew.

Event: May Bumps 2015 - Saturday
Posted as: mt
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To sprint, or not to sprint - that is the question. Luckily for us, Christ's made the decision pretty simple. We closed to a length on Clare in the latter stages of our start, closed to 1/2 in the middle of our transition push, a canvas in the middle of our push off 1/2 a length, and overlap as we reached the step in our bumps push. Somewhat mirroring the Grad VIII, it must be noted how incredibly distressing it is to have such well defined sequences, which everybody is familiar with, which work well, only for the gap to close so rapidly that the cue for the next move comes in the middle of the previous one! We hit them in First Post Corner, and we have a nice hole in the boat to prove it.

Joking aside, last night a severe lack of alcohol in the cloisters and at dinner (beers after outings with the grad boat building an unusual non-zero tolerance perhaps) meant that I was unable to channel my inner-Jackson upon reading in my card from M1 that "one of these days a FaT crew may actually impress you". This seems as good an alternative platform as any. If any crew has impressed me whilst at FaT it has been this term's W1. Through a fractured term on the water, every single girl has put the effort in on land to make the boat faster, to push each other on to reach new limits, whether it be leading weights sessions for the newer girls, training with CUW in the background, or just knocking second after second after second off their splits. Two weeks ago when we finally come together as a set crew, we knew we had big improvements to make. Whilst there were some rocky outings along the way, whenever we really, truly needed to step it on, to find that extra gear, to push that little bit harder for that little bit longer, it happened. When we had Newnham close behind/beside us on days 1 and 3, we could have given up. Nearly half the crew's first introduction to bumps was spooning off head last term. Nobody could have blamed them for wavering, for thinking this is it, it's happening again, now we give up. But they didn't. We had the strength, the mental toughness to keep going, the grit to take push after push, full crew, and just let Newnham blow hard behind us. And then there's today...today was something special. Coming into first post, we were moving the fastest we've been all term; I don't need a speed coach to tell me that. I thought out final push was a formality: the words necessary to tell the crew that this was it, that we would just hold our boatspeed and use the corner to hit them. I was wrong. No other crew I've sat in has come close to having the cohesion of that lift. Technically we're not particularly noteworthy, we certainly don't have the pedigree of the men's side, so you could be forgiven for thinking that we finally sharpened a bit, or sat up that little bit more. Maybe those things did happen, but that's not what was impressive. What was impressive was that 8 girls believed in all respects, without exception, that they would be backed up in what they did by the 7 others. And they were.

Event: May Bumps 2015 - Friday
Posted as: mt
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A bit of a stress to get straight from crossing Top Finish back to the Lock and pulled in, even with our CUCBC approved queue skip. Unfortunately this led to what can only be described as a disaster of a race, mostly gaining on and hitting Christ's M3 because they blew up somewhere near first post corner. It didn't help that the call for Ramming Speed bumps push caused us to slow down, only prolonging the horror. Never again.

Event: May Bumps 2015 - Friday
Posted as: mt
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Moved away, kept moving away.

Event: May Bumps 2015 - Friday
Posted as: mt
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Newnham, being hounded by Christ's, went back to their "Go Hard" strategy leading to a repeat of day 1 in terms of Newnham on us, and then a repeat of yesterday in terms of us on Clare. Highly unfortunate that we had to take our moves early to escape Newnham but Bumps is often unfair. Tomorrow we're back to a full strength crew (huge thank you to Julia Attwood for subbing) and we're going to fly.

Event: May Bumps 2015 - Thursday
Posted as: mt
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Having beaten Selwyn M2 by 20" at Champs Head, we were ready for the double over bump on Selwyn M3. Unfortunately, we had underestimated just how slow Selwyn M3 were and they were bumped by the previously over bumped Sindey Sussex M2 (technically disallowed). We were left chasing the over bump on Magdalene M3 - the one crew we were particularly concerned about being able to bump. We closed the 6.5 lengths to 2 lengths however, but then ran out of river. Definitely rammable with a little more tactics, if required on Saturday.

Event: May Bumps 2015 - Thursday
Posted as: mt
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Coming around First Post Corner I was concerned that we had blown having rowed a significantly longer piece than yesterday. Then we RAMMED them.

Event: May Bumps 2015 - Thursday
Posted as: mt
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"My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" Theo Snudden, Jesus Captain 2014-2015

Event: May Bumps 2015 - Thursday
Posted as: mt
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Much more aggression than yesterday. I think we pushed ourselves to a new limit today. We held onto our boat speed as we transitioned from our start far more effectively than in any short piece we've done this term. Steering the crew was always going to prove tricky with selection being forced so late, and so little time to get any real hard long pieces in as the crew before bumps. That said, if the right hand bends had Chris clenching on day 1, I hope he brought a change of underwear today. Grassy went wide to the exit, but still tighter than Clare - nothing that can't be remedied from the entry tomorrow.

Event: May Bumps 2015 - Wednesday
Posted as: mt
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The first problem with bumping before First Post corner when starting from station 3 is that you don't get the practice the bumpy water in the gut and plough reach, or the corners. The second, more important problem, is that Iain struggles to get up to your bows by the time you need that first whistle. The third is that the closing time from a canvas to overlap is less than the time interval required to blow 3 whistles.

Update: Trinity Hall III seem to have scratched due to severe embarrassment.

Event: May Bumps 2015 - Wednesday
Posted as: mt
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A fairly textbook start despite being released from blade tips with 15" to go due to the outflow and strong tailwind. We moved on Jesus, who moved on Clare. We found our usual base, with Newnham slowly grinding us down at full whack behind. Fairly tight around the first 2 corners, a little wide around the 3rd for a possible escape with Newnham a little too close for comfort - too many times have I been the chasing crew only to have the enemy disappear and us to blow for us to not let them die a death on the inside. The semi-tactical puddles hitting their bows led to a crab, flawlessly timed with a push from us that would make even the spice man himself proud. Newnham were broken, and we just kept moving away for the rest of the course finishing several lengths clear.

Event: Lent Bumps 2015 - Friday
Posted as: mt
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tomorrow