First and Third Trinity Boat Club
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The Club's Results

Pembroke Regatta, Lent Term 2015

2nd men's VIII (2nd division)

Coxed by: Liv Godwin

1st round
Bye
A trivial victory, which merits a report from a desire for completeness. (John)
2nd round
Beat Darwin M2
We successfully managed to be late to just about every stage of marshalling here as a great importance was given to doing our frontstops builds and other stationary exercises, and rather lesser importance to the marshal telling us to row down. Our start under the bridge was reasonable, and we continued down to First Post Corner doing exercises and confusing the hell out of Darwin (following us down).

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. (John)
Quarter finals
Beat Emmanuel M2
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.

The race was quite exciting for the first minute; we took moderate distance off our start (a vast improvement on the first race) but Emma stayed broadly with us. As Tom pointed out, we were stabbing the water a trifle more than it perhaps merited. We used our lead to push them further away and a few strokes later we were clear and out of their sight and they gave in. We strode it down a couple of times and paddled over the line in safety.
(John)
Semi finals
Beaten by LMBC M2
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.

True to form, we were late pushing off and spinning from the P&E, although we quickly caught up with the slow crews on the Reach. We did a 3/4 pressure start under the Railway Bridge which felt composed, smooth and stable. We actually got our finishes out. Buoyed up by how good this felt we paddled up quite slowly but relatively elegantly. We contrived as much of a delay as we could before pushing off for the race (the marshal here was quite insistent).

We did our start and it was ok. I think they edged out a seat on the start; they were slightly out of my view. We strode and took it back. We raced side by side with very little variation down the reach, and matched their push with ours, as they did ours. We came under the bridge and they took a seat or two on the inside of the corner. Up to this point it's been a good race and nobody could tell which way it was going to go. Under the bridge our rowing disintegrated slightly with the tiredness and the frustration that we hadn't got a lead on them yet, but then theirs must have as well.

Then it's our corner; we need this to take back the seats they took under the bridge. Their cox cuts the corner and rows into us, presumably trying to tuck in ahead of us but without bothering to get ahead first; our blades are about a foot off the bank and we still have an enormous blade clash on stroke side. We keep rowing as best we can, while losing all semblance of togetherness; at least a few people get their blades majorly stuck in at the finish but the main problem is that they are kind of in our way - how can you come past if there physically isn't space? So we lost; verdict by 3/4 of a length. Neil argued with the marshal but to no avail; sadly they didn't bother supplying our race with a competent umpire. Nobody likes to win by disqualification but it would surely feel better than losing; we didn't even get a re-row (possibly the most reasonable thing to have done if they don't want to DQ on principle).

As Neil said atbh, the main loss from today wasn't the pots (although they would have been nice...): it was not finding out who would have won; who deserved the victory, and now we are unable to ever find out. It's the game; it's the competition that counts, and they were cheated as much as we were, although it probably doesn't feel like that from their camp... We know for certain that we're the fastest two second boats this term; we just don't know who should take the title. Also, I'm angry.

On a different note, congratulations to M3 for winning! Definitively the fastest third boat on the river.
(John)
Fantastic effort from M2, and definitely not the first time Maggie has gotten away with colliding into a FaT crew. In the words of Grenfell-Shaw, "I call conspiracy" (Pembroke Regatta 2012)! (Yining)
We were all very excited for this race- the real chance to determine who the fastest M2 on the river was. The first 3/4 did not disappoint; we were side by side the whole way, the gap varying by only one or two seats. They took a marginal gain on their corner, perhaps moving to 1/3 of a length, but the last corner was ours. Neil and Liv drove us on, I heard "Do or die, boys!" from the bank and I knew this was it, our moment- then they hit us.  

Liv took a great line into the corner to maximise our advantage there, and they steered into us with nowhere for us to go. There were a few loud bangs behind me, but we kept going- but then they were physically blocking our path, so we had to pause briefly, and of course they pulled away.  

Immediately after the race, I was angry, not at them (everyone makes mistakes sometimes) but at the fact that we lost the opportunity to prove ourselves. We all knew it would be a DSQ, the red scum were equally uncertain about the result, but somehow it didn't happen. After browsing the regatta rules, I found the only rule regarding steering was that should a marshal whistle twice and warn a crew of their line, they must move or face punishment. I never heard any whistles...
(Ben)

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