The Club's Results

A first bumps race for most of the crew, and a first for me as a cox, and it wasn't exactly ideal from a weather perspective. Snow and a large stream led to some "issues" at the start. We got pushed off, and due to an excess of hats, I was struggling to hear the countdown and to keep us straight. As a result I forgot to tell people to square up and the gun went off with us pointing quite left, and not everybody square. Anyway, we set off, had a bit of a voyage to strokeside, picked it up well and rebuilt from there. I extended the wind to recover speed, and when we lengthened it was looking pretty good. The surge felt powerful and we were set up for a really nice race. Then we hit Darwin. Not much to say really about a race which finishes before the motorway bridge. All I can say is bring on Lucy Cavendish on Thursday :) (Swords)

We knew Lucy Cavendish were going to be pretty quick, the question was whether we were faster. The answer was no. Oh well. Clare II bumped Darwin pretty easily behind us, then we were probably only just outside station (hard to see from the coxes seat) on Ditton, then they rowed away from us. They'll hit Caius II tomorrow easily, so we'll be rowing away from Clare II. (Swords)

This was quite a race. We knew that Lucy Cavendish were quick, and would hit Caius quickly. We also knew that Clare II had a fast start and were likely to fade.

Anyway, we set off, straight-ish, and settled a bit high, so we re-surged to a better rate. Predictably Caius got hit near the Motorway bridge, however they then cleared in front of me, leading to a massive swerve across the river, possibly costing us a bit of speed and rhythm. Clare II were getting whistles behind us, however I was unconcerned, as we reckoned they were going for a sprint plan. Coming int first post the Whistles started to get more insistent, however I stil thought they were about to die. Then we hit a bit of wind onto Plough Reach, leading to a massive voyage of discovery, and I look out to my left in order to get a better view of my new line, only to see the Clare II bow girl. Oops.

Anyway, at this point I heard Iain shout "May be a good time to call a push", and I can't say that I disagreed, so I did. Much quoting of 300 ensued (Give them nothing... Go), and we pushed out to a bit of clear water. They then returned to overlap, with their bowball possibly within touching distance for me, and we did the same again. A wide line (deliberate this time) put me in the middle of the reach, giving us a bit of lateral space, to buy some time. Another massive lift pushed them back a touch, and a combination of the headwind and us moving away a bit seemed to finish them off. That was extraordinarily close. (Swords)

No blades for the week, unfortunately, but rowing over under immense pressure is something that requires far far more cool than simply crashing into slower boats. Row well tomorrow, there is a caius crew out there that deserves spoons.

P.S. From the Clare race report 'It must also be said the FaT II were absolutely nails.' (Thomas)

This was an exciting race, the first captured on TandemCam. Unfortunately my camera skills went out of the window when the race got dramatic leaving a video consisting mainly of the bank and my screams.

A good start and a good row towards the Ditch. A tight corner by Swords on First Post was followed by a not-so-tight corner on Grassy (but not as bad as mine last year on day one). This meant Clare closed and, as the video shows, got within inches coming down Plough Reach.

Coming into Ditton first meant getting hit by the wind first, causing overlap, forcing Swords to go left. Pushes and pushes came down the first part of the Reach, one of the earlier one practically bringing the bow ball of Clare almost in line with Swords. The girls show great nerve to return every Clare push which meant after Clare had given their legs 10, FaT opened up the gap. They continued to open the gap all the way to be several lengths clear by the bridge. (Mark)

After stressful marshalling, with Ye only arriving as the division rowed to the start, the crew rowed to the start knowing it was theirs to win or lose.

After the brilliant effort holding Clare II off yesterday, they quickly closed on Caius, who were bumped just after the motorway bridge. (Thomas)

Insanely glad we bumped up, super confused at Swords' and Tom's (outwardly) calm reactions, apologies galore for causing so much distress to my crew - but whew, +2 for the week ;) ra ra FaT! (Y. Yao)

A brief row to the motorway bridge resulting in a quick bump. Up 2 for the week is a touch disappointing, however a failure to blade has far more to do with the way results fell in front of us in my opinion. Oh well, that's just the way with bumps.

However despite performing a bit worse than we had hoped, I feel that the experience gained this week will be hugely useful later on. In years to come, some of these girls are going to be rowing in 1st crews, and may well have to defend our shiny new headship from those nasty people at Downing, or whoever ends up chasing them. The row over in front of Clare II will hopefully have given the girls some belief that they can really push through the pain barrier, and that it's not over until contact is made. (Swords)