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All race reports for Jack Mills

Event: May Bumps 2011 - Wednesday
Posted as: Jack
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So before the race, Caius decided to do a racing start into the back of us, snapping stroke's blade, and bending our rudder, as well as snapping their bow's blade. Fortunately noone was injured. After rowing down with just 6 of us and no rudder Ian was great, he had a spare rudder with him, and had the boat fixed in no time. Meanwhile numerous people were cycling in lots of blades (for us and Caius) and we were soon ready again.

I hope the Caius cox gets shouted at, and then learns from his mistake and never makes it again. I assume no one in Caius was injured as they did the race. I hope they're okay anyway.

So onto the race itself. We knew before we started that we were faster than Maggie following nines regatta, we also strongly suspected Catz II were going to be faster than us, we just didn't know what the margins would be.

We didn't start great, I know I personally didn't row very well initially, though we got it together after a bit. But Catz were gaining on us rapidly, we were also gaining on Maggie, but not quickly enough. We were down to 3/4s of a length when Catz hit us.

Did Caius hitting us affect the result? probably not, as far as we're aware all damage was repaired on the spot, and everyone was fine. Psychologically sure we we're shaken a bit by the incident immediatly after it, but there was a big gap between that and the start of the race, and it probably didn't affect our performance much.

All things told not a great row, but a fairly okay one cut a bit short, it was dissapointing not to get Maggie but unfortunately this is the nature of bumps, sometimes it isn't sufficient to be faster than the crew ahead.

Event: May Bumps 2011 - Thursday
Posted as: Jack
Event Link

Well Hughes Hall had 2 blue boat rowers a goldie rower and the blue boat cox in their crew. More returners than M1 let alone M3, as well as a full compliment of other massive grad students. It's fair to say the odds were against us.

This race went better than yesterday, the loudness of the cannon under the bridge made us jump a bit and the first 3 strokes wern't great, but we recovered quickly. Although we made one or two mistakes these were also fixed quickly, and all things told I'm far happier with todays race than yesterdays.

All our best efforts wern't enough to hold hughes though, and we were bumped going into first post corner.

Event: May Bumps 2011 - Friday
Posted as: Jack
Event Link

Being chased by yet another quick crew on for blades again, and same result as before. We didn't row particularly well, but lasted longer than before, making it just out of first post corner.

Cheeky overbump on Hughes for M3 headship tomorow =P

Event: May Bumps 2011 - Saturday
Posted as: Jack
Event Link

Last night we recieved an email from Magdalene assuring us that if we held Robinson to first post, they would bump them. Although we held up our end of the bargain, holding them just onto the Plough, Magdalene didn't get even slightly close to them.

Today was a good row, a hard sprint of the start, unlike on previous days we didn't panic as they got close, and held them well. But they steadily gained and bumped us on the exit of grassy.

All in all a very disapointing week. But perhaps we can take some solace in the fact that although we might not have blades with FaT III written on them, four other colleges will.

Totally didn't accidently add this to W2 instead of M3...

Event: Clare Novice Regatta 2011 - Plate
Posted as: Jack
Event Link

NM3 were a length ahead by half way through the start, pulled to a bit more then 3 lengths of clear water, then held it at that distance for the rest of the race. Things got a bit sloppy towards the end as people got tired, but all told a good race. Kate held a great line the whole way.

Event: Head of the River Race 2012 - NOV
Posted as: Jack
Event Link

Marshalling was a very interesting experience. About 10 stroked after pushing off people started complaining about their seats, and we discovered I'd put all 8 of them on the wrong way round, so whilst attempting to row to marshalling we tried to put them the right way around, which wasn't helped by the fact half of the crew didn't know how to take a seat off, only 6 of us were sucessful. Our attempts at marshalling were further handicapped by Josh's weak bladder meaning bow pair wern't always available to take strokes, and the fact a start mashall misinformed us about whether to cross the river resulting in us being on the wrong side. Ellie dealt admirably with all the chaos and somehow got us to the start line in the correct position.

So anyway, we row down towards the start and the race is on, we find outselves (despite the start order) being chased by Christ's II with Clare II behind them. After an initial burst we settle to rate 31, which we kept consistantly through out the whole race.

About 3 or 4 minutes in we find ourselves overtaking somone, this was an entirely novel concept to me, and was most enjoyable, we gained some speed pushing into, and then off the crew. About 4 minutes later the same thing happens again and we overtake another crew.

All this while christs have been gainingly slowly but steadily on us, they're still a comfortable distance away, however either they seem to take the speed up or we lose some speed, as they start gaining on us more rapidly, we go for a push to keep them off, and find ourselves overtaking another crew. Christs are gaining on us considerably now, and we end up with us and Christs sandwiching the other boat, and rowing 3 abreast.

Christs pull ahead and we continue overtaking this crew, however our boats drift closer together, and we find our blades overlapping, for a few strokes we are beatuifully in time with the other crew, us recovering as they drive, and our blades dance gracefully around eachother without colliding. However the inevitable blade clash happens, and I catch an overhead crab.

With JSBs assistance I recover within a few strokes, and we continue rowing through the other crew. However Clare who untill this point were a very comfortable distance behind have taking the opertunity to considrably close the gap.

Around this time the cox box has run out of batteries, and ellie is limited to shouting at the top of her lungs for stern 4 to hear. Around now I'm also feeling very tired and I have no indication of how long we've been rowing for due to the timer having died, and not knowing any of the tideway landmarks. I begin to worry about how much longer we have to row.

However in a couple of minutes we realise we're not far off the finish, and have a big push for the end. Clare have taken a bit more distance out of us, but we fight to keep them away and cross the line still ahead of them.

Our result wasn't excelent, and our race could have done with one fewer crab, and about twice as much cox box, however I feel we had a good row together (Though we did lose some speed in the third third as we got tired I'd say). I found my first experience on the tideway very exciting and enjoyable, and would say it was worth getting up at 4:45 for.

Event: Clare Novice Regatta 2012 - Plate
Posted as: Jack
Event Link

This race was fairly typical novice racing, the crew that messed up the least won.

The race began and FaT's better patience on the first three strokes had them up a few seats almost immediately, then both crews settled into a race rythm and Queens' began to slowly pull away, up the reach we had a few pushes, each one of which took a couple of seats, but Queens' higher cruising speed had them half a length up coming past the white house.

Queens' two man decided to even things up by catching a crab and stopping rowing for a few strokes, FaT pushed on to try to make up the distance, and even after Queens' two man had recovered make up some more distance, pulling it to dead level under the railway bridge, it looked like we had ourselves a close race on hand.

Then Queens' decided to crash into the inside of the railway bridge corner, giving us a large margin, we held onto this untill 5 strokes before the line when bow man's seat came off, but there was far to big a margin for Queen's to capitalise and we crossed in victory.

Well done to NM3 for their first win, I was very impressed with their pushes, every one of which took distance out of Queens'.