All race reports for John Grenfell-Shaw

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Event: Pembroke Regatta 2012 - 3rd division
Posted as: John
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There were a couple of factors differing between the first race and our second, with Pembroke. One was that they had blue blades. Another is that their boat said 'PEM' on the side. An element with slightly more influence might be that Pembroke didn't give up after we pulled ahead (and weren't so easy-going as the polite Clare crew, who said that they 'only wanted to lose to the eventual winners'. Which was fortunate).
The weather remained singularly awful and taking strokes was an exercise more in luck and guesswork than our carefully choreographed (I think the term is, ah) rowing. Squaring blades became a thing of the past, as did warmth, dryness and a sat boat. Appalling weather. Luckily, forwards remained the prevailing direction for our vessel, but it was a close run thing. The race itself was quite tough but we took an early lead which we maintained despite Pembroke's rallying; they were never too serious a threat.
The most entertaining portion of the charge had to be its finale. Through the red haze of competitive racing (by which I mean any call made by Yining went completely unheeded) when Pembroke were but a half length or so behind us, a single shout from Simon made itself distinguished: "MAGGIE GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY!" (I'm including this section purely for the excuse to use the caps lock key), followed hot on the heels by Neil's "Eyes forward, boys, do NOT look round". Race fervour ensured that, for the first time in my life, I followed instructions to the letter and it was only following our winning of the race that we could spare the time to gawp at the incompetent John's crew who had been set off in the race before ours and were yet to complete the course. It also explained some fantastic and amusing manoeuvring by Yining who used the blood-red boat as an excuse to pull directly in front of Pembroke, stymying any attempt to overtake until the good Lady Margaret had pulled into the side. Euphoric.

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Event: Pembroke Regatta 2012 - 3rd division
Posted as: John
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In order to keep these reports coming, I shall endeavour to pretend I haven't actually read everyone else's accounts.
The luck of the draw ensured that we had one more race than anyone else in the competition (true only if we got the final, of course. Coincidence?).
This was felt very bitterly and personally by yours truly, and seemed a deliberate attempt to discredit our race attempt against teams already one-love down to a remarkably FaT M3. Furthermore, the weather was beyond abominable, and in many exciting years of rowing experience (read 5 months) I have never been concerned that our taking onboard of errant river would be more down to the oscillations of the water than the splashing of overly enthusiastic catches.
We won, by the way.

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Event: May Bumps 2012 - Saturday
Posted as: John
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Ah, protestors! You did manage to screw over somebody's day after all. After watching them approch, we hung out gazing at Ian Bone and his elderly anarchists wave banners at our boathouse. This was quite amusing, although we couldn't hear a word they were saying over the ghastly wind, which would prove a dominant feature of the day's rowing. The wildlife protestors in their ultra environmentally friendly outboard-motor driven boat held up the races by over an hour, achieving basically nothing other than general annoyance and much generation of counter arguments to their activities. Like I've never killed a swan. Or a duckling. Georgia would kill me if I tried...

So as predicted, the boats ahead of us, after spannering around for the last few days bump out again, pretty much immediately. We're used to this by now, and had planned for the overbump or the double overbump from the beginning. We knew we could do it; all that remained was a little bit more pushing. Ah, were that were so. Over half way to the overbump on Cats', just round first post corner we're told to easy then hold it up as we approach their stern. Then we hear the klaxon and we're told that King's celebrated A Bump (we're also told this is very exciting for King's) by not clearing and parking across the breadth of the river. They were at the head of the division, and as a result, unless you'd bumped before first post (as Christ's did, earning their blades, to much bitterness from us given we beat them outright at Nine's), racing was over and everyone was awarded technical row overs. There was no time to rerow the division, no way to make an exception for people just about to overbump because they were already running an hour behind. So we were livid.
We entertained ourselves pettily by rowing slightly scrappily but pretty efficiently in the truly dreadful headwind on the reach, and catching up to Cats', easying perfectly sat and drifting past their stern to bump them gently, before letting them get a bit more distance and beginning to row again, every time a little nudge; this is us bumping you, this is us bumping you. Goddammit.

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Event: May Bumps 2012 - Friday
Posted as: John
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Back in a taped up and much maligned Richard Church, we're still happier in her than Titan, even if the amount of water it feels the bows let on is considerable. Much joking about me sinking. We're told the bow will fall off if we hit anything.
We start, we push, we bumps push, we get overlap with St Cats' III whose cox then concedes, all before first post. This all sounds just fine, thank you very much. Unfortunately, a second before the Cats' boat concedes, the Tit Hall III stroke man apparently fell off his seat, allowing the Tit Hall cox to concede a half second before the Cats' one. We easy and almost hold it up because we think we've bumped, and Christ's power it round the corner. Then the next instruction is a command to go back to full pressure at race pace, as Alex weaves in and around the melee ahead of us, unavoidably losing us yet more distance and speed over our pursuers. We get back in to rhythm, conveniently exhausted after our fantastically effective bumps push, and spend a very long time desperately trying to push Christ's away. I must apologise for our grassy line, although luckily they steered for the bump. We were caught a length or two off the overbump, as we reached the plough. Gutted.

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Event: May Bumps 2012 - Thursday
Posted as: John
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We get to the boathouse and are pleasantly informed that M6 have written off the bow of our boat. This provides the much need confidence boost. We row down in Peter Brandt, then swap with a pleasant M5 crew who have just bumped to row in Titan, a boat in which my feet kept coming out of the footplates. Thanks M5. Fantastic way to begin the day.
We start, the boat two ahead of us, St Cats, who we would like to heavily scold for being too damn awful, catches three or so crabs off the start and so Tit Hall catches them instantly. We get depressed as we row past but feel the overbump is on the cards. Nobody chases us as the fearsome Christ's III catches the meek St Edmund's almost as quickly as we did.
Unfortunately, the overbump wasn't on the cards, because although we were gaining on Selwyn III, it wasn't enough to catch them before they bumped out Jesus III at Ditton. Then there really was nothing to chase, and we paddled down the reach, watching a desperate Homerton boat overrate us by ten in a desperate attempt to catch up and so avoid the sandwich position the following day.

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Event: May Bumps 2012 - Wednesday
Posted as: John
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Oh my, we were so happy. St Edmund's II were an enigma; we had no idea how they would perform. We assumed it was basically their M1 from Lents', which spooned in embarrassing style, being bumped by such giants of rowing as Darwin I, given their ludicrous number of returning blues, and we may have been right. Our worry was that they would bump out with Tit Hall III too early for us to bump them, and then St Cats III would prove too speedy for us to close with. We fretted an planned and decided that day one was categorically the most difficult and important day.
We started, our seven and stroke men in gales of laughter at the antics of Jesus IV behind us, and we got half way through our lengthen strokes before the cause of Iain's shouting became apparent.
A glance to my left shows their stern rapidly falling behind me; I lift my blade barely in time to avoid the stern of their boat as the rest of the our crew tries to hold it up urgently, but to no avail; my spoon thumps their cox in the back, and my blade handle punches me in the stomach (leaving a bruise which made tapping down painful for the next couple of days, if you're feeling sympathetic), ripping my feet out of the footplates and me off my seat, and I very nearly go for yet another swim in the Cam. Apparently they caught two crabs and an overhead crab off the start. If only things had continued in that vein.

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Event: Champion of the Thames Eights Head 2012 - Men's 4th div. Mays
Posted as: John
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We love square blades rowing! This was a fun race and it could have gone much worse. True, it could also have gone much better, give or take poppers, footplates, a boat which categorically hates us, and an amusing immediate stroke side corner. Seven seconds off M2 was not for us to sniff at, even if M3 did destroy our time. We rowed (which is at least something) and we learnt that feathering is such a simple, easy action that just about everything in the boat can we shaken up when it's introduced. Luckily this is a problem we sorted out over the following weeks. We also took the convenient opportuntiy to fill our footwells with bricks, in Iain's words. It gave us a taste of our time relative to others in our division, leading to much happiness and celebration. How little we knew.

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Event: Bushe-Fox Freshman's sculls 2012 -
Posted as: John
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So this was also a fantastically successful sculling race in which I lost horrendously from the very beginning. Soon enough, although I started a good distance ahead of Steele, he overtook me. Some small consolation comes in being told that it looked like I crossed his finish line before he crossed mine. The famous Cambridge river crabs were out in force and there was little I could do to stop them. Next time I'm definitely getting some practice in.

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Event: Peter Brandt Sculls 2012 - Novice 1x
Posted as: John
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The start was ok and I was keeping pace with True nicely for the first hundred metres or so, me in my tracer using macons, him in his racing shell using cleavers. Then I caught a crab, and one crab led to another, and the race was basically over. Sculling is difficult when you're sufficiently unsat that tapping down becomes a nervous exercise in trying not to capsize.

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Event: Cambridge Head-2-Head 2012 - 3rd Mays
Posted as: John
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First outing as a crew? Felt kind of interesting to begin on a race. We started and rowed for a bit, and then we overtook someone which was fun. Then we reached the motorway bridge and some unkind person told us to spin and row it all again. This was definitely not so enjoyable; despite almost managing another overtake on the reach, our time was significantly slower. Rowing hurts.

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Event: Cambridge 99's Regatta 2012 - 4th division
Posted as: John
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Clare M3 were good; they'd had an easy first couple of races (sorry M5) and were feeling confident. We started, pushed, held them and fell out of time during the surge; we need the coordination provided by the cox. Things became scrappy and pulled back together. Clare pulled ahead gradually over the length of the reach. At bow it was demoralising to watch them edging further and further ahead, and a couple of crabs leading to rowing not at all together lost us yet more distance. Luckily we didn't panic and held it together under the railway bridge where it was astonishing to note that we were gaining. This gave us such adrenaline; from the despair of certain defeat (again!) we felt hopeful and buoyant, and the sudden energy allowed us to take it back even faster. We kept pushing and every stroke felt like it gave us 6 inches on them, and the wind for the last few metres destroyed they faint hopes of retaking the lead; certainly from how it appeared and how much of their boat I could see as we crossed the line, unbelievably ahead it felt like a much more convincing victory snatched from the jaws of defeat than the actual quarter length lead we had, but I guess that's how elation skews perception. I now have a delightful tankard on my shelf.

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Event: Cambridge 99's Regatta 2012 - 4th division
Posted as: John
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Christ's were clearly a rugby boat. The rugby tops and lightweight rower in the bows (according to Barrel) gave it away. But the first thing of note before this race was that we got to watch Corpus spin again! Didtheymakeitdidtheymakeit*crash*awh no they hit the bank again.
I can't remember it but judging by our usual performance our start wasn't great but could have been a lot worse. We held them with 3/4 of a length lead down the whole course; they began to push before the bridge and almost drew level before we pushed off the bridge in excellent style; they had no more energy and fell back again, granting us another victory. Jelly baby refuelment time.

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Event: Cambridge 99's Regatta 2012 - 4th division
Posted as: John
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We watched Corpus M4 spinning after we'd parked. This shouldn't be enough to instil a profound sense of confidence immediately before a race, but when Yining stepped over to instruct their bow pair and stern pair in the art of avoiding the bank and rescuing bow balls we felt this race probably wouldn't be as competitive as some of the others. This feeling was marred somewhat when we attempted to move our own boat down, and did so in a very professional, calm and thought out manner which didn't involve an angry lady in a houseboat hurling base accusations at some noted members of our crew. Big thanks to Yining for managing to carry my rucksack which on cooler days she might have used as a tent.
The race was interesting; we went off rapidly and wildly off the start in an effective but untidy and inefficient manner. Soon we settled down to rate twenty four paddling or thereabouts. Now might be a good place to mention three key disadvantages in using Richard Church: the velcro on the footplates keeps coming out, so Matt rows feet out pretty regularly, the cox box doesn't display ratings, and the wires connecting the speaker in the bow to the cox box have come loose, leaving bow pair completely deaf to the instructions and encouragements Alex was using to motivate us; the surge timing especially suffered because of this. Yining acted as a sort of relay, conveying orders from stern to bow. They had a very loud and feminine bank party on meadow side, cheering them on and videoing. We were unsure if we managed to feature in any of the video... Jon gave us a lecture afterwards on the art of remaining calm and in control during races; something which we tried to take to heart on the later two, but precision during racing is definitely still a work in progress. The hurriedness and scrappiness could easily have lost us the race against Clare.

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Event: Lent Bumps 2012 - Saturday
Posted as: John
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Yining has the right of it. Such was our anticipation for receiving fabulously coloured and elegantly decorated, ah, wooden spoons that our race speed dropped off part way down the course with instantaneous and disastrous consequences. On the plus side, they are a lovely shade of navy blue, with little gold ribbon tied at the end of the handle (thank you Simon!). Apparently, we were bumped by Hughes Hall II as well!
So, psyched for the race by a heartwarming and cheering email from Julia (bless!) who reminded us that not only could we row over if we pulled ourselves together, but that she would really rather appreciate it, we paddled up to the starting line. Nothing strange about that; it happened every other day too. Hughes Hall were back in their racing shell. We share resigned glances and wish them luck. Sure enough, Churchill set what may be a new record for speediest bump, and decided that their favourite activity, of a Saturday afternoon, was to get in the way of a demoralised FaT crew with nobody to chase. We held Catz II very nicely for a considerable while before, as the others have elucidated, we dissolved and ended up bumped. How annoying. At Grassy, too, in front of all the spectators and at much the same distance as we had the previous day when being chased by the boat race crew of yesteryear.
Yes, you might agree, but not half so annoying as what happened just ahead of us. Cast your mind back to the reach on the first day where we were desperately holding off Tit Hall, praying that Clare would push just that little bit harder, squeeze it through, and bump our neighbours. Now it really doesn't take a genius to guess what happened the second time Clare found itself taking an antagonistic role. If only Clare had fulfilled their potential on the first day, we wouldn't have ended our first season quite so calamitously. Such is bumps.

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Event: Lent Bumps 2012 - Friday
Posted as: John
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Well, obviously we all settled into this race thinking that we a very reasonable chance of pulling ahead of Hughes Hall and, obviously, easily catching Clare II before they bumped Churchill. Obviously.
We rowed past Hughes Hall on the way to the start and took another gawp at their Blues' splash jackets and Lights' insignia which was resplendent and certainly helped the old university patriotism, yet for one reason or another did nothing to inspire us to be self assured. They were huge! All we could do was write a couple of alternative lyrics to one of Disney's finer creations and try to let music calm our nervous demeanours (we never quite seemed entirely sure whether we were writing a song about Yining making men out of us, or whether we were attempting to belittle people who have made enjoying pain their life, but hey, it seemed to work). On the flipside, however, while they might have had, according to Simon, around fifty years more rowing experience, immeasurably larger and fitter bodies and all the confidence in the world, they had managed to break their racing shell and were in a knackered vessel which was clearly bound to sink before the motorway bridge, while we had our very own gorgeous Black Prince.
We pulled away from them at the start, to our everlasting pride, and put up more of a fight than any other crew that week; our ninety second race plan, designed to sprint us up to catch Clare II had to be radically extended, to two and a half minutes such that we got to Grassy before finally being caught. Damn that Churchill boat, again, for being so bloody awful! If they had but held off Clare for but a little while we would have been in with a chance. As it happened, they merely screwed over our racing line again. It was hard work but with no hope of victory and so nothing to lose, quite good fun, really. They were nice about us too. Certainly, that King's boat had nothing on us ("you stupid cox!"). Well, luckily, they'll be well out of our way next year...

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Event: Lent Bumps 2012 - Wednesday
Posted as: John
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Oh yes, and wasn't this fun? We start better, and thing seem to be going ok. Clare gain on us, which after Tuesday didn't seem earth-shaking, or even particularly worrying. Further away from the cannon, perhaps? We push them away, they get back again etc. So far as I remember, it all started going wrong. Well, that much was obvious; I simply mean that before the approach to grassy, we pass a triumphant Tit Hall crew who had just bumped a miserable and generally useless Churchill boat, neither of which pulled in sufficiently fast as to give us a clear shot, forcing on Yining a weave, losing us yet more unaffordable distance.
What we didn't realise (eyes in the boat!) on the approach was quite how congested grassy was. As unlikely as it sounds, picture Selwyn and Peterhouse on the inside of the corner, before the houseboats, with Selwyn's bow over Peterhouse's stern, submerging the coxes seat and soaking the poor lady. Their boat was sinking. On the outside of the corner sat an unhappy Magdalene boat - I forget what had happened to their bumper but they probably got in our way before the corner (everyone else did, why not them?). This narrowed the corner such that turning was impossible: grassy was not made to fit three boats, let alone the additional two of us careening around the bend at full race pace. So, we hit the bank with a jolt and a cracking sound, and Clare just rowed on by. Sickening.
So the race is over. We feel depressed and Simon begins talking about the stochastity of bumps when Caius rocket forward. In a daze we hear Ian's call to get out of the boat. Nothing happens. The bank party yells the same with ever increasing urgency and we realise that the Caius boat which had seemed so adequately steered was in fact not going to miss us. We understand what Simon means when he says a crew can leave a boat and pull their blades in, in a good two seconds, all at once. Except Yining, who was left a couple of feet out from the bank with no easy way to get out. Somehow this happened anyway, and Caius whizzed past, scraping everything possible to scrape as they did so. Still this was more successful than their pursuing Maggie boat, which, as I recall (but please correct me because this doesn't seem possibly right) which approached the corner at full tilt and slammed into the stern of the parked Magdalene boat (or the bank. Bit of a blur).
Edit: Yining assures me that the true state of affairs was that Peterhouse bumped Magdalene, then Selwyn ran over Peterhouse because they couldn't stop in time, and the Maggie boat bumped Caius at the corner, causing the aforementioned chaos.

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Event: Lent Bumps 2012 - Tuesday
Posted as: John
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One sound has been echoing in my ears pretty consistently. The boom of the cannon firing immediately before our disastrous start, despite two and I being as close as it was possible to get to the ordnance? No. Blaise's repetition of "defend your ears!"? Yes.
In the end, it wasn't so bad. In fact, just damaging enough to utterly paralyse us for the first second of the race. So we pulled away, did our standard racing start with four or so air strokes on the first draw (just to be clear, our standard racing start doesn't actually include these), and began to pull as though the hopes of First and Third depended on it. Well before grassy (the only corner I know by name), Tit Hall had pulled rather too close for comfort (for this we can blame a Churchill boat which will feature again in these reports for being bumped out stupidly early and forcing a poor line onto us), and it then became a desperate struggle to hold them off for as long as we possibly could, despite the many minutes we spent with overlap.
Before the reach we managed one major push, and lifted off their boat for all we were worth (which wasn't enough, as it happened), and there were a few blissful feet of open water between our vessels. This lasted until the reach, where our hopes became pinned upon a remarkably sluggish M2 Clare boat which had previously wished us luck in order that we could hold off Tit Hall (I refuse to call them by any other name) until they bumped them. This never happened, and Clare remained a steady and disappointing boat-length behind. Our rowing became hurried and slightly messy, and it ended inevitably someway down the reach, as we ran out of river to drift across. Alas, alack, but Simon felt we rowed well, and it was a gruelling yet character building challenge. Which will help us in our preparation for future races. And didn't leave us feeling at all disappointed. Or frustrated. Or, indeed, mad?

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Event: Pembroke Regatta 2012 - 3rd division
Posted as: John
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Oh and wasn't this one fun? Here follows an utterly unbiased and accurate account of events as they unfolded:
It was close and hard fought and difficult and intense and everything you could possibly want from a final to such a competition, including the plucky underdogs greatly desiring their revenge for some unfairness or other that there must have been previously when we didn't beat them at Clare Novices, which included a nail biting crab caught by their stroke man in the very mirror of the previous race allowing us to regain our deficit and perhaps even pull ahead; their comeback was incredibly strong, revoking our temporary reprieve. This bit lasted until the very final stretch when slightly worse than dubious steering from Maggie pushed our boat hard up against the bank, and in a sneaky and underhand move deliberately (hear that? Deliberately!) clashed blades with us, resulting in caught crabs and loss of way and general inconvenience; the distance we lost was irrecoverable and victory rather than disqualification was handed to our old rivals (old in a traditional sense rather than actually rivals we have had much to do with; having raced them but once before they already feel like timeless enemies). I call conspiracy.

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Event: Pembroke Regatta 2012 - 3rd division
Posted as: John
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Caius did quite well at Fairbairns, really. They beat the University Lights and their M2 beat our M1. So were we brimming with confidence after our three late morning races, compared to their two early morning ones? In a fruitful effort to instil some doubt into the strong opposition, Steven let loose a mighty bellow at the beginning of the race, the echoes of which triggered some subconscious primal reaction in the stroke man of Caius M3 significantly further on down the course. We were incredibly evenly matched, with Caius having a slight edge through the whole course but our boat never giving a single inch. Surely we weren't just going to stand by and let Caius get a clean sweep of the regatta? Surely they weren't greedy enough to want four trophies? The wind had died down completely and so this was a race able to display our flagging and jaded technique rather better than the previous three, and so it came as even more of a surprise when one of these factors contributed to one of the well-known, dangerous and little-seen Cambridge River Crabs fastening itself onto the blade of the opposition's stroke. This seemed to be the prearranged signal for all seven other rowers to instantly halt, on the final stretch before the finish line, perfectly timed so they could collide with a houseboat, lending us an incredibly hard fought easy victory, which was followed by warmth and recuperation and jelly babies and being generally pampered by Neil.

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Event: Pembroke Regatta 2012 - 3rd division
Posted as: John
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While it's true that we had already beaten any combination of competitors in our first three races at the Robinson Head, this race promised to be even easier than the first two. Darwin M1 are alas not fabulous this year, and Queen's M4 are almost surely a fourth boat, so it was with a reasonably carefree attitude that we pulled up to the starting line. This evaporated when the inaudible starting call was made which led to us being a stroke and a half down from the start as Yining was trying to adjust our boat position. They then lost all hope of catching us by the end of our start to such an extent that past the railway bridge we heard a call from the bank 'take the pressure off' (after our fifth surge or thereabouts) which was promptly heeded, resulting in a nice calm paddle at a rating around ten below race pace. The following 'not that much, we're not that cocky' was an irritant but led to slightly snappier rowing as we crossed the line for the third time.

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Event: Cardinal's Regatta 2013 - 8+
Posted as: John
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Pre-race fancy dress consisted of Sam saying 'shall we strip?' and Daisy vocally approving... Nobody on the bank was very impressed (this may have led to us starting the last race a length down), although many crews did comment that at the very least they could admire our bravery.

Sophia did not almost eject off the start, so the race began a triumph compared to the practice, even if Sam did have to tell the whole of stroke side to put less power down... Sadly, Jason at stroke couldn't bring the rate up to the c. 47 we'd promised beforehand, but whatever we settled on proved strong enough that Dougall felt he could row inside arm only as we passed David Ponting in order to 'pose' for the camera. The pink house has never felt so far away (in such a heavy boat) but Tit Hall were never in danger of pulling it back, so we won comfortably.

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Event: Cardboard boat race 2013 - 1st division
Posted as: John
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A solid race with primary propulsion coming from James' craftily procured punt pole and secondary help from paddles wielded by Dougall, Daisy and me. The start was a bit random - we put the boat on the water and shot off the moment we saw another crew begin the race and tried successfully to overtake them. The egg fit nicely in its egg holder, a spare gaffer tape reel and we dodged the competition on the return leg to arrive victorious. St Edmund's May Ball, thank you very much!

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Event: Cardinal's Regatta 2013 - 8+
Posted as: John
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All our desperate pleas couldn't persuade the umpires that stripping off definitely counted for more than simply wearing a fluffy hat; combined with Robinson's bribery we were a length down before the start.

Apparently we gained on them off the start, then went a bit wild, the rowing wasn't great, and our massive 5 girl caught an overhead crab (from which she recovered extremely quickly); this eliminated the small progress we'd made and we finished about the length down that we started. Had we started fairly, we reckon we would have won, so next time there's a mixed regatta with arbitrary scratch crews...

Losing this race came with mixed emotions: on the one hand, we felt we could have won had the race been fair, and nobody every wants to lose; on the other, we stood to lose 4 members of our crew had we actually had to keep racing that day, so maybe losing fairly was the preferable option to mid-regatta scratching...

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Event: Cardinal's Regatta 2013 - 8+
Posted as: John
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There was a very long gap between races in which Daisy made friends with a stranger who seemed quite taken with the way our boat had raced, and who offered her chocolate he happened to have unwrapped in his pocket...

The race, when it finally came, was very similar to the previous one, albeit with slightly less posing, and rather less composure. There was also no 'stroke side quiche NOW!' call off the start... The pink house remained much further away than it had any right to, but we still won by a way.

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Event: Lent Bumps 2013 - Thursday
Posted as: John
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When using the facilities provided at Chesterton for marshaling, it was interesting to note how all the Churchill (and Downing II and Caius II...) rowers stood about a head taller and a third heavier than I did. In this light, it was encouraging that for Churchill to succeed in staying away from us they ended up finishing in a pretty poor state, putting in a Herculean effort of which, as Tim noted, a particular highlight was making their 5 man throw up.

Overall, it was a much nicer row than Tuesday, but we never moved more than half a length up on them, which was a shame. Hopefully they'll be in a sufficiently lacklustre condition they won't manage it again today...

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Event: Pembroke Regatta 2013 - 2nd division
Posted as: John
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Much harder than it had any right to be, we paddled up with much more style than them (as per usual), then gained on them very slowly throughout the race... This race, coming very soon before the final, took a lot out of us (or at least me).

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Event: Lent Bumps 2013 - Tuesday
Posted as: John
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The list of things we didn't do very well went on for quite some time at the crew chat, from not pushing hard and finishing it off round grassy to not gunning it at the start (and definitely not making it to rate) to some unusually lopsided rowing which was depressing because of how well we've previously rowed in wash.

After gaining on Maggie slightly off the start we were all put off by the weird horn noise coming from their bank party (my first thought was klaxon...) which apparently meant that Churchill were under threat. We then sat there to Emma's consternation for about 1km before they died, we finally got the whistle and then we moved on them and I hit my blade on their stern. I feel my tightrope walking needs some significant work...

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Event: Pembroke Regatta 2013 - 2nd division
Posted as: John
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King's II were an unknown, so we went hard off the start, gained massively, then strode 5 or so times as they gave up and we paddled home. The 'easy there' over the finish line caught me rather by surprise...

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Event: Pembroke Regatta 2013 - 2nd division
Posted as: John
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'We're better than your first boat', we thought to ourselves smugly as we paddled better than them to the start line. Then we went off, preparing for the same race as we'd had against King's. They were neither slow nor gave up, so unfortunately we had to fight for this one. The consensus was that at no point were we in danger of losing, but neither could we force them to give up and save our energy. Fun race, but a pity.

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Event: Pembroke Regatta 2013 - 2nd division
Posted as: John
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Very similar attitude and race to the previous, although slightly easier; again this was a shame. Over confidence was our downfall the entire day - we knew we were the best M2, but we kind of forgot to prove it. IIRC this race as well we wound it down slightly before the finish line, although this time we were trying desperately not to hit the previous finishers and our race pace (Darwin women or someone) who didn't clear the finish line...

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Event: Pembroke Regatta 2013 - 2nd division
Posted as: John
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Knackered and feeling severely unwell, this was not a race I was looking forward to coming hard on the heels of our semifinal. We paddled to the start line, trying not to betray how shaky we felt, then started and gained on them. They copied our tactics, however, and waited for us to die before moving through; not even cutting the corner under the railway bridge was enough to close the distance between us and they beat us fair and square. As commented afterwards, the problem was that we were comfortable at 34, not at 38, and 34 just wasn't fast enough to beat Caius over such a short distance; hopefully our extra high rate work between Pembroke and bumps was enough to give us the lead we know we're capable of.

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Event: Cambridge 99's Regatta 2014 - 2nd division
Posted as: John
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While our practice start was distinctly octopean this did not translate into the beginning of the actual race, where for the first time (and with bumps 2 days away, let us pray not the last) everything felt clean, together and really very fast. It turned out that this was actually fast enough to put a seat up on Magdalene, giving me the exhilarating feeling of watching us pull ahead of a boat with an intimidatingly Helge shaped height spike in the middle. Sadly, it was not to last and when we strode the boat fell down and we lost our speed and more importantly whatever rhythm had been working hitherto. From here we could only push on and watch in dismay as Magdalene moved up on us after which we lost sight of them, never to regain. The row felt decent but not special, and even when Neil pointed out that they could always crash our pushes had a minimal effect on boatspeed. And they didn't. This had  one further unfortunate consequence in ruining Jason's perfect 99's Regatta results record. Sorry Jason...

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Event: May Bumps 2014 - Wednesday
Posted as: John
Event Link

I went into this race with mixed feelings: on the one hand I felt that we had a long way and a lot of work to go before we were actually decently prepared for bumps, and on the other Rob exuded blithe confidence that the bump on day 1 was definitely on (although perhaps this was a front to give us confidence in ourselves). My uncertainty was compounded by being told that if we could pull off a fantastic start wed break Christs, and if we couldnt the race outcome wasnt so rosy.

Signs were encouraging on the way up; we had tremendous fun being better at paddling than Queens and listening to Seema have the internal debate were at a canvas off them and gaining fast should I easy?, with a practice start which wasnt perfect but gave me hope for the real thing.

The race itself was composed half of relief and half of frustration. To me our start felt terrible with blades all over the place, although I gather from the bank that we gained on Christs and Queens. Our rowing continued choppy and as we entered the gut things became very hairy as we saw Queens bearing swiftly down upon us and their whistles became more frequent. Thankfully, Queens chose a style of cornering Grassy very familiar to Steven, Matt Crouch and I which bore a striking resemblance to not cornering Grassy and Jesus promptly overtook them, setting the stage for a very satisfying Queens II spoon. The whistles didnt stop, however, giving rise to the sudden realisation that our bump was on! Rowing continued to happen, poorly, down plough reach and up to Ditton where in the bows we were spurred on by the wash we could feel from behind us; 5 feet was the closest we got, according to David Jones. About around Ditton they started to pull ever so gently away and despite our best efforts we didnt have the energy to keep the speed and the rate up. Our plan was to race to the Plough and thats pretty much what happened. Down the reach to me our rowing felt weaker but so much tidier than the rest of the race and something like 32 and Christs gradually opened out their lead. Thank you to W1 for their energetic and invigorating support as we rowed past them!

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Event: May Bumps 2014 - Thursday
Posted as: John
Event Link

This race was much easier to face than the last one; we knew how much faster Jesus were so our only strategy was to go as hard as we could and hope we hit something else first. Everything else was pretty similar; had a decent paddle up and a moderately better start but we were too panicked to row nicely together which led to the boat being thrown all around. It wasnt a tremendous surprise that Jesus hit us as we got to First Post corner.

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Event: May Bumps 2014 - Friday
Posted as: John
Event Link

Chased by Hughes Hall, coxed by Rosemary, our primary coach this term, we were pretty certain this race would follow the pattern of the day before. It seemed very unreasonable that in the queues for the toilets we overheard them saying things like with a little bit of training I reckon you could get down to, ooh, about 6:10 pretty easily (although at least today nobody had burnt the toilets down...). Anyway, we set off and the extra resignation played its part and the rowing was much calmer, neater and a lot more fun. We didnt eliminate the wobbles in the first few strokes but it was a lot easier to put down power when we settled into our rhythm and we had a decent stab at a very fast First Post Reach. Im told we moved away from them off the start and gained on Jesus. Sadly the fact that they were better than us showed through pretty quickly and we again got hit just after the corner.

The frustration at bumps shone through on the paddle back, with a desperately slow Pembroke crew paddling back ahead of us, allowing us to gun every single stroke, safe in the knowledge that wed have to easy very soon to avoid stabbing their cox in the back. Some of our best paddling and pause paddling all term; shows that sometimes anger is productive, although sadly not enough to change the race results.

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Event: May Bumps 2014 - Saturday
Posted as: John
Event Link

Even less to say here; we watched Queens get thumped by Darwin before so we knew, again, that the crew chasing us was much bigger, better and faster, and the crew ahead was also much bigger, better and faster. What can you do but sprint for the overbump on Jesus? Back to a race very similar to day 2 without decent cohesion. We all tanked it but I guess our lack of raw power combined with inexperience in how to apply it together properly meant the race was never going to last long. Pulling in on First Post corner gets old very quickly.

Back atbh the now-traditional throwing everyone in the river took place, along with quite a lot of washing the boat half with soap and half with beer. Steven and I thought the best place to participate was probably safely on the balcony in an attempt not to swallow too much Cam water 2 days before May Ball. Sadly I also entered the cardboard boat race. Ah, well. Another set of bumps over and another sorely negative result. And the one thing everybody is glad about - at least we didnt spoon!

Still waiting on those spoons from last year though Rob...

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Event: Cardboard boat race 2014 - 1st division
Posted as: John
Event Link

When putting our boat on the water it felt pretty secure. When I got in it felt wobbly but on the whole quite solid. The other 3 crew members then also jumped in, and we tried to push off. As every novice rower is told, you must hold your blades, in their gates, our on the water in order to provide stability. Alas the jetty we were using was too high to do this on the bank and we were too slow to do it while pushing off and the first thing FTT 404 did on its maiden voyage was to capsize. In righting the craft a well-meaning spectator helped to tear off one rigger and half the sides, and the weight of water effectively tore off the other side, leaving us with, to most intents and purposes, a raft (and 2 punt poles). Having 2 people punting simultaneously was quite fast but very unstable, and when my punt pole got stuck in the mud, leading me to fall and the vessel to capsize again we decided to go with single pole propulsion combined with one pole for use as balance.

We continued on, at some points realising pulling ourselves along the bank would most likely be easier and more stable than punting, until we got significantly past the point where we expected we should turn back. Having seen nothing to collect and no markers we thought to hell with it Trinity here we come. At least itd make it easy to give back the punt poles. I gather from after the race that there were indeed half way people in a punt but things started off a little bit too confusingly for everyone to be in position.

We made our stately way along between the tourist punters, most of whom assumed we were about to sink and wanted a lift (the very idea!) until the stern and the nose began to bury themselves under water and progress became very slow. We realised how airtight the gaffa tape was when we flipped over the craft and sat on the air pocket held underneath it. Sadly the boat was making little to no progress and finally fell completely to pieces in the middle of the river near to Cripps Court Johns. Trying to get our cardboard to the bank was a bit of a catastrophe because every punt going past felt like stopping and avoiding 3 cold and bedraggled swimmers was too much to ask they were in a tremendous hurry, after all. Then we enjoyed getting out of the water, and then back in again to help lift about a tonne of wet cardboard out onto their lawn before a bemused porter wandered over and mentioned where the recycling bins lay. The one final twist to this tale was when I got hold of Georgia who told me that shed given our collective stuff to Steven who had made his way to the boathouse so sadly in lieu of getting warm and dry, Matt Crowe, Alasdair P-R and I made our miserable way to the boathouse looking as much like drowned rats as we possibly could, much to the amusement of the usual Cambridge tourists... Sadly a much less successful effort than last year, despite a much more solid construction and significantly better ideas. Well learn from our mistakes and ensure that next year works like a dream.

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Event: Nottingham City Regatta 2015 - IM3 8+
Posted as: John
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Event: Lent Bumps 2015 - Saturday
Posted as: John
Event Link

We went into this race knowing it would be difficult because Darwin were fast off the start, but we suspected that if we could hold them for long enough they would fall off and we'd be able to row a decent head race.

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Event: Cambridge Head-2-Head 2015 - 2nd Mays
Posted as: John
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Event: Head of the Cam 2015 - Novice 1x
Posted as: John
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Event: Head of the Cam 2015 - 2nd Mays
Posted as: John
Event Link

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Event: Head of the River Race 2015 - In3
Posted as: John
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Event: Cardinal's Regatta 2015 - 8+
Posted as: John
Event Link

Rowing up to the start line again we noticed a slight disparity in the composition of our crews; this afforded us no advantage whatsoever on the start and we went into it with the all guns blazing attitude which by all rights should have worked.

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Event: Cardinal's Regatta 2015 - 8+
Posted as: John
Event Link

We had the opportunity to observe and recoil from the costumes of the other FaT crew, who had spectacularly taken to their theme. Barney's corset and thong being a particular highlight, if that's the word I'm after... Hopefully there are some photos knocking around somewhere.

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Event: Cardinal's Regatta 2015 - 8+
Posted as: John
Event Link

The WinTech is the favourite boat of few people, and I was nervous when Matt suggested we take it for our races. However, I got over this apprehension with the desire to put as many buckets in the boat as we could (sadly limiting ourselves to the two sensible ones; having zero net moment on our boat being apparently considered a Good Thing), and by pinning to my shirt as many balloons as possible (and to the short lived hat, which ended up swept away by the wind on about stroke 4 of the paddle up). These tended to get in the way both of the finish and of simply coming up the slide as a balloon would get stuck between my body and legs; possibly this was a ploy to stop me lunging at the catch.

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Event: Nottingham City Regatta 2015 - IM3 4+
Posted as: John
Event Link

The IV had some weird issues; it felt so close to rowing well but having one practice outing wasn't sufficient. It was just a little bit unnecessarily rocky. Having said that, when we were racing we had a good start and a solid rhythm. We pushed well of the start and were broadly holding the field; our main race was with the IV in the outside lane (to Liv's left) and we were constantly trying to keep them at bay, being slightly up for much of the course. Sadly our pushes tended to disrupt the race rhythm and cause strange things to happen. When we got to within the final 500m we discovered why other people train for these events; the other IV put in an excellent sprint for the finish while we had nothing to move onto, meaning we failed to qualify for the second round by a frustratingly small amount.

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Event: Cambridge 99's Regatta 2015 - 2nd division
Posted as: John
Event Link

Clare M2 were faster than I expected but we did our start, strode down to a fine 34 and moved steadily away from them. We were never in danger of losing, but we worked damn hard for the length lead we won by. They went on to win the plate.

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Event: Cambridge 99's Regatta 2015 - 2nd division
Posted as: John
Event Link

Wolfson were decent. Their start was better than ours, and our start an improvement on the first race. They took ground which we never took back, and then carried on moving away from them. They were aided by a bye in the first round, while I and others were definitely still feeling shaky, but the guys in the Wolfson boat were big enough and rowing well enough together there wasn't much we could have done. They went on to beat Maggie M2 in the final, denying me revenge for Pembroke Regatta in Lents.

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Event: X-Press Head Race 2015 - 2nd Mays
Posted as: John
Event Link

Not our best rowing. The wind was impressively strong, and this had some kind of psychological impact on our rowing. Even in the sheltered areas simply sitting the boat became a thing we couldn't do. Our race plan was to start as close behind Darwin as possible, then try to blow up by the Plough and spook them by moving closer, as we planned to in bumps. What actually happened was Darwin started miles away and we never got close to them, and we paddled it round at somewhere between 30 and 32, making the rowing calm but still rocky. We weren't remotely dead by the Plough, but this translated into a solid row down the Reach as we tried to put into practice our focus on drive separation. Occuring the day after 2k tests, it was never going to be our best race, but a bit more of what we'd had earlier in the term would have made it more pleasant. Our thanks to Alex Caulfield for coxing us today!

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Event: May Bumps 2015 - Wednesday
Posted as: John
Event Link

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Event: May Bumps 2015 - Thursday
Posted as: John
Event Link

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Event: May Bumps 2015 - Friday
Posted as: John
Event Link

We'd passed a pulled-in Christ's crew (courtesy of Wolfson) shortly after the Motorway Bridge on the previous day, so we were pretty sure that we were faster than them. I say this; we'd been pretty sure that we were faster than them for the previous 6 months, so despite the annoyance of Day 1 we went into this race determined to show why we'd been training this term.

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Event: May Bumps 2015 - Saturday
Posted as: John
Event Link

I was a bit more worried going into this race: Downing were clearly not terribly good, but they'd been hit on Day 3 at about the same point as we were on Day 1, so I didn't think the speed differential would be that great.

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Event: Fairbairn Cup 2014 - Lower VIIIs
Posted as: John
Event Link

This was a longer and from my point of view much less smooth race than the day before. We put Jason and Adam in the boat (with a big fish little fish call designed to get them to stop quiching and start putting a bit of effort in) thinking that things would go a lot better with two senior subs in the boat. What ended up happening, however, was on the first draw stroke they got connected just that little bit earlier and managed to turn the boat a surprising amount. With the rudder hard over I let the start sequence look after itself, put the rudder hard over and bellowed for a bit of bowside pressure. Our angle lasted rather longer than I would have liked until finally we got straight but on the wrong side of the river (let's hope not too many people watching our race noticed), only 7's blade in the end clipping one of the barges. What with this stress over we settled on something like 30 where we valiantly stayed. While desperately trying to calm my nerves and get some race plan back in my head Dougall decided that what he wanted to do most, immediately before Elizabeth Way corner, was catch a crab - clearly he thought it would be embarrassing if we beat M1 and thought to nip that one in the bud. Luckily it was recovered quickly and we got back on some semblance of rowing, pushing off the bridges and gaining on Jesus who were ahead of us.

Sadly, this calm was not to last. Deciding that Adam had set a good precedent trying to screw up strokeside corners, Jason managed to break his seat on the approach into Chesterton. A decent effort from Dougall powered us round well enough for me to feel like my worry had been misplaced. Good job. A few tens of strokes out of the corner Jason thought he'd start rowing again and we promptly got back on Mission: Overtake Jesus. Some more surely indistinguishable shouting later and we were pushing off the bridge and trying to get the overtake before the end of the reach. Credit where it's due, Jesus did a sterling effort keeping us off, and we closed to with a handful of lengths round Ditton, Plough Reach, Grassy and then the gut (where I have a vague memory of trying to get the bump). Finally on First Post Reach I got to use the call Jason had been waiting for all race and asked (unnecessarily, it turned out) Jesus to clear the racing line. An enormous row for the last few hundred metres of the race (Ben's face illustrated the effort the boys had been putting into this race) and we crossed the line, about a length behind Jesus. A solid performance.

Standard Fairbairn's marshalling at the end gave us plenty of practice waiting, and we managed to be the last crew to leave the lock (Neil being Neil wanting to share some stollen with us). The delay at the far end as every crew decided to wait to let other crews push off and join the queue was really quite special. We might have looked a mite impatient.

Thank you to Emma S-C for giving Harry and me a lesson the evening before - from a personal point of view it increased the quality of the drivel I was producing no end, even though anything I thought of as carefully prepared went immediately out of my head.

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Event: Lent Bumps 2015 - Thursday
Posted as: John
Event Link

On my cycle to the boathouse I can't say my heart leapt with the prospect of the coming row; it didn't take long to feel pretty soaked. Luckily, by the time we'd warmed up and put the boat on the water it had completely dried up and I was able to remove my camouflage raincoat (it enabled me to hide and blend in with the enemy).

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Event: Clare Novice Regatta 2014 - Plate
Posted as: John
Event Link

This was among the easier races of the day. We kept our eyes in the boat and didn't even glance at the opposition. A decent start gave us a start's distance worth of lead, which was followed by a reasonable surge onto race rate. After a handful of strokes it became clear our opposition weren't going to catch us so we continually surged until towards the end we even introduced some pausing as a technical focus, demonstrating how far ahead we were by that stage.

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Event: Clare Novice Regatta 2014 - Plate
Posted as: John
Event Link

Our first real race. A hurried but generally decent start (both for power and technique) put me on Christ's 3 girl (along with a handful of blade clashes which were probably shared responsibility - sorry...), and continued energetic and sharp rowing put me past their bows, where we stayed for the rest of the race. The effort stayed in the boat for the duration of the race, but as people got tired the technical aspect begin to depart and the boat speed came off slightly. We held it together enough that we continued to push off Christ's all the way to the finish line, demonstrating the work and focus we've tried to keep this term.

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Event: Clare Novice Regatta 2014 - Plate
Posted as: John
Event Link

In my opinion we had one of our best starts of the day, putting us broadly level with Jesus (perhaps a seat or two down), followed by some excellent technical rowing at high rate. Sadly we caught an overhead crab shortly afterwards, giving Jesus a length or so of clear water but after we got the blades back in everyone in the crew showed what they were made of and promptly started pushing enough to claw back a bit of distance on Jesus. Sadly it wasn't quite enough and Jesus did a good job of responding to our push, ending with clear water. Despite that, it was a very brave race and I was impressed by the determination in the boat. Very encouraging for Fairbairns on Thursday!

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Event: Fairbairn Cup 2014 - Invitation VIIIs
Posted as: John
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Event: Novice Fairbairn Cup 2014 - 2nd division
Posted as: John
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Event: Novice Fairbairn Cup 2014 - 1st division
Posted as: John
Event Link

We jumped in the boat, got straight and off we went. Our draw strokes went quite well, and our wind brought the rate up to a pretty decent 35 which, despite frequently called surges, refused to go away for the first minute or two of the race. Eventually we decided to settle on a reasonable 32 which we kept up for the remainder. Broadly, we had a very smooth row, with only a handful of fluffed strokes leading to our fantastic overall result (6th! You guys rock). On the way we passed a sheepish looking Jesus boat parked on the outside of Elizabeth Way, giving me my first opportunity to tell somebody to keep clear and not pull out. A variety of legs calls intermingled with the occasional call to sharpen up those finishes got us through to Chesterton where it became obvious that we were gaining on the crews in front of us. We were closing quite quickly on Peterhouse (as evidenced by them finishing 41s behind us) but not nearly so quickly as we both were catching Robinson (2'29'' behind). Overtaking crews is fun, it has to be said, and we used this to spur us on under the Railway Bridge and onto the final straight. We picked up the pace and on the whole kept the rowing together and pushed on over the line. Rob's main thought after the race seemed to be that throwing me in would make him really very happy - sorry to have escaped you there. Maybe next term. We pulled in, wandered around, chatted to NM1, and accidentally missed the end of NM3's race before pushing off and doing a lot more overtaking on the row home.

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Event: Fairbairn Cup - IVs 2014 - College IVs
Posted as: John
Event Link

It must be said that having successfully dropped my bike key, university card and phone in the river on the row home from the previous race, as well as having sacrificed my voice to the rowing gods, I did not go into this race in the best of moods. We put the boat on the water about 3 minutes before our start, and everybody readied up with seconds to spare. This was to help us get our heads in the boat and have nice and calm pre-race preparation in order that we could go out and smash the competition. It turned out that we hadn't practiced or discussed our start (so far as I could tell, ever), but this was Jason's third race of the day with me coxing him so at least one person in the boat knew what to expect. In the end it got off ok, called like all the others, and we began moving the boat gently round the corners. We had a variety of pushes but everybody's favourite call of the day was asking Blaise to draw up - I did this so that Sam would stop looking for people to punch. In an unsurprising twist, the cox box stopped working 500m before the end of the race. I don't think my voice has ever sounded so haggard. The other two things of note to mention here were that Jason's rage face is genuinely terrifying, and we were almost (but not quite) caught by the Corpus crew chasing us. In other news, we weren't last! When you beat the first Caius IV you, err, know that it was a banter IV like yours was and that we probably cheated too much (there were, I believe, three pre-race outings). We were also beaten by some of the women.

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Event: Cambridge Head-2-Head 2015 - 2nd Mays
Posted as: John
Event Link

The race started in the standard moderate and entertaining confusion (at least, I enjoyed myself) as we tried to overtake a selection of crews gently drifting into barges in order to find our marshalling position before waiting for a couple of innumerate others (I believe amusingly Christ's and Queens' M2s - maybe they wanted to practice getting bumped) to start their race out of order ahead of us.  

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Event: Robinson Head 2015 - Men's 2nd
Posted as: John
Event Link

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Event: Lent Bumps 2015 - Friday
Posted as: John
Event Link

We went into today with a much better attitude than yesterday, and it showed. We knew that Wolfson were fast and that if we wanted to bump them we needed to row well, and for them to kill themselves trying to get Homerton before Homerton hit Downing. If by some miracle Wolfson and Homerton bumped out then we'd go for the overbump on Downing and try to make Neil very happy indeed. Our warm up was reasonable, and after some shaky tapping and all eight arms only we had a passable paddle down to marshalling.

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Event: Lent Bumps 2015 - Wednesday
Posted as: John
Event Link

Today went pretty much exactly as anticipated. We did our standard warm up down to marshalling and the start where the rowing alternated between balanced and nervous. The practice start was scrappy initially but after the first handful of strokes we started getting our blades in together; this seemed to bode well, given it was the first time for six of us in the boat.

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Event: Pembroke Regatta 2015 - 2nd division
Posted as: John
Event Link

3s at Fairbairns, 3s at Newnham in their favour. 1s at Robinson in ours. How much did we want this? We knew this was the race of the day, and so it proved; Caius lost by 2.5 lengths in the final.

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Event: Pembroke Regatta 2015 - 2nd division
Posted as: John
Event Link

Emma had beaten us by 3s a couple of weeks before at Newnham Short so we didn't need telling not to underestimate them. Our clever pleading with the marshal that actually she wanted us to pull in by the P&E worked and we rekitted, refuelled and went searching for adequate shrubbery (it turns out everything has been cut down until past the Railway Bridge, to my annoyance). Predictably, they forgot about us and we were sufficiently slow pushing off that we succeeded in being rather late to Plough Reach this time as well. And then we were late pushing off from there, leaving Emma to shiver a bit longer.

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Event: Pembroke Regatta 2015 - 2nd division
Posted as: John
Event Link

A trivial victory, which merits a report from a desire for completeness.

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Event: Pembroke Regatta 2015 - 2nd division
Posted as: John
Event Link

Easy race; Neil had warned us many times before the race that we were to take Darwin as seriously as we would anybody else. I think we did, and our start was speedy, even if it were rocky and rather messy. We quickly gained the length and half or so we needed before we strode it down. And then strode it down again. And again. By the time we got to the line Declan and I felt like we wanted to be rowing at 18; I suspect it was more like 26.

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Event: Head of the Nene 2015 - IM3 VIIIs
Posted as: John
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Event: Newnham Short Course 2015 - 2nd VIIIs
Posted as: John
Event Link

With a barely functioning cox box promptly turning into a non-functioning cox box very early on in the outing we knew this was going to be a fun race. Marshalling took rather longer than we were hoping for and by the time we pushed off my fingers were royally frozen, making the paddle to the lock even more painful than usual. We also decided that we had to win otherwise Thornton wouldn't get his t-shirt.

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Event: Lent Bumps 2016 - Wednesday
Posted as: John
Event Link

I was a little nervous about my token rowing effort for the term being a bumps race, especially as I had rowed with no member of the crew before, and they were expecting the bump. Warming up on the ergs did nothing to allay my trepidation when I realised my legs were already rather sore from the earlier session. Luckily, the seat which had been vacated was at the sharp end of the boat, meaning that nobody could see my hopeless spannering.

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Event: May Bumps 2017 - Wednesday
Posted as: John
Event Link

Nothing to see here...

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Event: May Bumps 2017 - Wednesday
Posted as: John
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Gained on the start, but not as quickly as Corpus took distance out of Darwin. Shortly after that we started chasing the triple overbump. Spoiler: we failed. Our excuse for this race included the handle of Ed's blade coming out. Having received kind permission from Isabel to use Denys we decided to remove the crew naming ambiguity (leaving M3 well-defined) and self-identify as W3.

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Event: May Bumps 2017 - Saturday
Posted as: John
Event Link

With Corpus a proficient enough crew to catch three crabs on the start line on Friday, we felt that our chances of catching Clare were slim, verging on nonexistent. We went into the race aiming for a repeat of our solid row over from an hour before, with a view to grinding down Emma for the overbump.

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Event: May Bumps 2017 - Thursday
Posted as: John
Event Link

Really enjoying being sandwich boat... Clare hit Girton well before Grassy (despite our calm demeanour allowing Girton to take a little distance from us). We rowed away from King's at the beginning, got to a snappy rhythm on the reach, and took the pace down allowing them to close up a little by the finish. Yet more leg-sapping but no worries.

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Event: May Bumps 2017 - Thursday
Posted as: John
Event Link

Sweet revenge, after being bumped by Darwin 1 a couple of years ago. Feedback from the previous day had included a certain degree of relaxation, so we tried to take up the aggression. This let to scrappy rowing, as we pushed through the cumulative wash of the 17 boats ahead, but not scrappy enough to deprive us of a very quick bump. Corpus 2 did their level best to deprive us of this small victory by triple crabbing on the start, but their rowing on in sixes was sufficient to hold of the Darwin charge long enough for us to convincingly hit them. Thank you Sam, for helping us to this illustrious result. Oh joy, Clare again tomorrow!

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Event: May Bumps 2017 - Friday
Posted as: John
Event Link

Velodrome in the morning, fly or die with Clare in the afternoon in race number five of the week. Aggression and very short strokes were the order of the day here, with a rate build on the reach. We may have taken some distance out of Corpus with our enthusiastic but catchless start, but it didn't really matter. This time we held Clare for the first ten, after which they ate into the distance just as rapidly as before. We never bothered to stride, leaving it at a scrappy 38 before taking it back up over 40 as they got scarily close. Unsurprisingly, we got only a little further than the motorway bridge.

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Event: May Bumps 2017 - Saturday
Posted as: John
Event Link

There was no pressure from Darwin, and it turned out, no pressure from anyone else. We powered through the corners in the high 30s, before striding it down to 34 mid way through Plough Reach. We were down at 20 by the end of the Long Reach, with the only pressure from some crew aiming for a very optimistic overbump. Thank you crosshatching for making our sixth race a little easier than it might have been.