The Club's Results

Hurrah! A nice start; strode down to 38 and closed to within a length, then strode again to 32 and finished them off. Bumped just before first post (? I think... am still slightly hazy on geography beyond the motorway bridge after last year) (Erica)

Bow 4: up 44, all before first post corner. It's kind of getting annoying now, looking forward to a proper gutsy row tomorrow, might even get beynd ditton :D (Lilie)

Well this was fun. We knew that from previous race form, we were much quicker than Christs, but didn't want to get too complacent. In the end, it was very quick and very easy and the race was over before we'd even really got going, I don't think anyone was really even tired when we stopped. :)

Tomorrow we're hoping to hunt down Churchill; brilliantly, Pembroke hit them today which we hadn't expected. I'm excited already! (Amelia)

I think we're great. THANK YOU PEMBROKE!! (Thank God we called them last night...)

xx (Pia)

Job done.
Their crab meant the last half a length was easier than expected, but were gaining consistently from the start. A slightly scrappy bit of rowing to the bridge, but the second stride felt really good!
And I think we've given a new meaning to club stripeys :) (Little Jenners)

Good start, bit of a spacky first stride [to 38]. Second stride went well though, and we started to reel them in comfortably. The nearly-but-not-quite-best-ever-first-post-corner by Jenners helped us along nicely, and as we approached grassy I could start to feel their wash. They took it quite wide, and we held our [again] good line round grassy to go straight into their stern. BUMP! Tomorrow will be HARD as Girton bumped an apparently spannering Tit Hall, depriving pembroke of their blades, but giving them a [probably] easy bump tomorrow. Well, we will see. For now - Ra ra 1st & 3rd! (Lilie)

I think I probably had the best seat on the river for this one!

Gusty wind on the start and slight confusion from the bank about the bow-rigged nature of our boat meant a dropped bung (oops!) and a spacky first 3 strokes. We brought it back together and kept approximately on distance with Pembroke down 1st post reach until they inevitably hit Trinity Hall before the corner. In a last gasp attempt to avoid the bump, Tit Hall caused me a couple of heart stopping moments by moving across the river. Both crews cleared quickly though and (with a little gentle encouragement) pulled their blades out of our path.

Then was my first sight of Girton, i'd guess about 4-5 lengths ahead.
Into the corner a powerful ratio shift took us to our race rhythm. A couple of good corners later, we were 3 lengths away and gaining fast.
More bumped out crews on the entrance to Ditton were 'advised' by Iain to move their blades, so we could get a good line, eating into Girton's lead as they went slightly wide.

The explosion of power as we came onto the reach was amazing, and spurred on by Iain's 'you're inside distance' call, we knew that we were going to do it. It happened so quickly after that, a length.... half a length...... quarter....overlap.....BUMP!!!!!

A truly great achievement from everyone in the boat :) (Little Jenners)

I was standing at the finish, listening in on the CUCBC radios, and the reports from the umpires went something along these lines....

FaT within 4 lengths of Girton,

(a minute later) within 3 lengths of Girton,

(20 seconds later, if even that much) First and Third within 3/4 of a length for the overbump on Girton

(10 seconds later) whoops of excitement from all at the finish (especailly given that 6 out of 7 were FaT affiliated!)

Well done FaT! Fantastic performance. And well done little Jenners for what must have been first-rate coxing!

Congratulations! (Aileen)

Wow. This was a truly amazing row, definitely our best ever piece, and such a fantastic result. We all knew we had it in us, and as soon as we heard we were on station the boat lifted and went into a whole new gear. I can't honestly remember most of the race - it's all a bit of a hazy blur - but I certainly do remember the sensation of us hitting them! :)

Jenny, you were brilliant today, we couldn't have done half as well without your encouragement (and downright bloodymindedness!).

If we stay switched on and row as we rowed today and have done all week, we can definitely get Newnham, which would put the icing on our enormous, very extravagant, multi-tiered, blue and gold cake. :) :) :)

xxxxxxxx (for the rest of the crew)
xxxxxxxx (to share amongst the bank party)
xxxxxxxx (for Iain!)
xxxxxxxx (for all the totally unbiased FaT SUs, DUs etc)
xxxxxxxxxxxxx (for everyone else!)

PS I also _love_ the fact that we bumped Girton whilst wearing their colours!! Ho ho ho! (Amelia)

AMAZING!!! This felt better even than beating the Red Menace in Pembroke Regatta!

We had been feverishly trying to work out a way to engineer an overbump, this, bar the world's biggest equipment failure on Pembroke, being our only way to secure some seriously desired blades. One of our post-stomping plans included using Paracetamol against the effects of lactic acid (but Cath says it doesnt work, so dont try... she's gonna be a double Dr...) but in the end we managed it, unbelievably, yet fairly and squarly....

ish... a gust of cross-tailwind stretched Jenny's bung-arm in a Braveheart kind of manner until even she could not hold on to it any longer and let go... before the gun. This put me in a state of shock so that our eventually ensuing start was what one might call well spacky. We strode to 38+ but subsequent strides established our race pace of 35/36. As expected the Pembroke ladies bumped out fairly soon after and with Tit Hall having steered towards the non-towpath side to avoid the bump, übercox Jenny took an insanely successful line through the two stationary crews.

Passing Pembroke was truly one of the most encouraging moments of the race- with a good 5 1/2 length to go (at around First Post) self belief hadn't quite set in, and the wall of cheers from last week's surprise sparring partner really kept us going as we pushed, still spackily, towards Grassy.

Becca North later said that seeing us come into Grassy, it seemed like we had given up the idea of hitting Girton, but following a 'push out of the corner call' from Iain, we suddenly seemed to lift it and this is when we FINALLY found our race form. At this point, it might have been just over 4 lengths, I personally dont have a clue. But as we moved into Ditton, Amelia claims to have heard Iain shout '2 lengths'.

I only got the 'we're on station' from Jenny, who had been continually telling us that we were reeling them in and to make the best of our corners, which she, obviously, took brilliantly. But Ditton was the critical moment when Little Jenners turned into The Overbump Biest... there was a lot of agression coming through the coxbox, making clear that we had little choice in what was going to happen between the, arbitrary, ends of the reach. Coming out of Grassy, Iain shouted 'inside station'.

I think at this point every one of us had realised that we were going to make it and the distance calls to the bump at the railings came in shorter and shorter succession. It is unbelievable how our speed did not drop once throughout the race and how much we were still able to lift it towards the end.

'Hold it up!!!' was the signal for all hell to break lose. I seem to remember sort of crying, everyone was screaming with relief and we got out to obstruct the towpath jumping around and hugging (after the last crews had come by of course) for ages and ages. We went to thank Girton, who must have been gutted but were very gracious, then got back into the boat sans greenery. We managed to find some later and had the most elated row back to the boat house.

Who would have thought we'd be starting 8th on Saturday... I can't wait for that gun tomorrow. As much as I like Newnham... and as much as tradition obliges us to wish they could bump LMBC... we're very much up for a last day of carnage!

Thanks everyone for a fantastic row, to all our bankparties, biased and unbiased umpires and Bumps organisers (...) and all those other lovely people cheering. FCUK ©, I love being captain!!!

xxxxxxxxxxx (Pia)

5...4...3...2........ BOOM!!!
And we are now 8th on the river - 8th! Think it's the highest we've ever been :) :)
Ground them down over the course, bumped, oh sorry I mean _overbumped_ half way down the reach.
Cue mad jubilation and Cath swinging the honourary cox [not quite as good as our actual cox] round and round...!
WOOHOOO! Most satisfying row *ever*

Ra Ra 1st & 3rd (Lilie)

!!!! We did it!!!!

Despite a somewhat uncoordinated start, and knowing that Pembroke were likely to get Tit Hall in about ten seconds, we strode to a really solid race pace and just kept it there, closing to station on Girton by Ditton. Pushing out of the corner, we hauled them in and they conceded about halfway down the reach.

A really confident row; we knew we could do it on paper and we showed them we could do it on the water.

Newnham will be a hard row tomorrow but they've got to be scared by our meteoric rise thus far (and the STRIPES!). (Erica)

Such an awesome and well deserved result for a fantastic crew!
Newnham were simply out-classed, although even if they had got LMBC, this crew were more than capable of an(other) overbump on Jesus!
SO well done! xxxx xxxx (Abbie)

Bumped just on grassy after Newnham clipped both corners. Sure Pia will clarify in her essay/report, but a bit of a shame that we did bump so soon as the over bump may have been on again!! Woohoo though, 'proper' blades this time, bring on the headship next year hehe!
:D Ra Ra 1st and 3rd!

p.s well done Cath for now having an aggregate of 'staying level' :D
p.p.s and self congratulation for bow 4: up 64..!
p.p.p.s and of course super cox/rower Jenners: crossed blades and a rudder?!

mmmm off to go and bask in self-glorification and get drunk!
and [finally] thanks to Pembroke for being such good sports :) (Lilie)

Sorry we messed up ;) or was it the Newnham cox? (Pia)

Despite a spacky first minute which saw Pembroke come slightly inside station, we settled into our race rhythm nicely and were in the process of grinding them down when, as far as I can make out, they clipped the corner, someone came off her seat and we ploughed into them coming out of Grassy.

Rowing home with the flag was just so fantastic, thanks to all of those making up the wall of blue and gold sound at the Plough and down the rest of the course.

I just wanted to reiterate thanks to Pia, Iain and Jenny who have all done their jobs brilliantly this term. :) (Amelia)

All a bit anticlimactic really. I'd psyched myself up for a row similar to Friday, expecting Newnham to put up a good fight and be ground down over the course. However, they (or especially their cox) must have been scared by the way we shot up the charts behind them, because they clipped both corners in the gut, resulting in their 7-girl losing her seat and a somewhat earlier bump than expected.

More interesting to note is that they were closing on Maggie at the time, who were closing on Jesus - so if only Newnham had rowed a little faster, we would certainly have been on for our second overbump of the week on Jesus. So, a *slightly* disappointing result but I guess we can settle for Up Six this year... never mind! (Erica)