The Club's Results
Mich Term 2015
1st men's novice VIII
Cambridge Winter Head (Student Beginner VIIIs)
Emma Sprints (M1 Division)
1st round
Won easily against Queens NM1
Won easily against Queens NM1
This was pretty straightforward. It was obvious from the first stroke that barring a huge mishap, NM1 would win. Given the crab from the stern of the boat could only count as a minor mishap, they won!
Quarter finals
Won against Wolfson NM1
Won against Wolfson NM1
Wolfson were bigger than Queens', and this was a closer race. Nonetheless, NM1 didn't panic, and kept reasonably together down the course, finishing a decent margin ahead of Wolfson.
Semi finals
Won (narrowly!) against Caius NM1
Won (narrowly!) against Caius NM1
The only reason I'm writing race reports. This was epic!
NM1 started cleanly, but Caius started strongly, and moved out to about three quarters of a length. Through this, NM1 stayed in their rhythm, and slowly the speeds equalised. I don't know whether the subsequent movement of NM1 up on Caius was the result or cause of a Caius rower losing their seat, but over the next 200m, we gained steadily on them, coming to level with about 10 strokes left.
At 2 strokes to go, there was a wobble in the bows, and I thought all was lost, but NM1 held onto an extremely narrow margin (surely less than a metre) to win.
This was a brilliant example of trusting a rhythm, and moving back through a crew as a unit. Hopefully NM1 take this victory, and remember, when they are down, they can still win. I don't know how much the seat incident cost Caius, but it will be interesting to see the two crews race over a longer course; I'm fairly confident we had been about the same speed before the seat came off.
Moving on, the crew mustn't discount Caius as very serious competition - they saw off a big Jesus crew in the previous round. With the Red Scum also an unknown quantity, NM1 must continue to press on, and work to be as fast as they can be.
Final
Won against Selwyn NM1
Won against Selwyn NM1
Not a formality, but a formality. Selwyn were in touch for the first third of the race, then caught a series of crabs, and stopped. The real final was the semi-final, but well done to the crew for finishing the day off.
Good effort!
Clare Novice Regatta (Cup)
2nd round
Beat Clare by 2 lengths
Beat Clare by 2 lengths
A strong start for NM1 in Clare Novices regatta. Although the rowing wasn't as clean as later in the day, we moved on clare pretty quickly. After striding it out several times in the second half of the race we won by 2 lengths
Quarter finals
beat Catz by 2 lengths
beat Catz by 2 lengths
Absolutely awesome, best race of the day in my opinion. Both crews had good starts, with Catz pulling away slightly in the first 100m. But we remained faithful to our strong rythmn, and rowed long into the headwind. Slowly eating away at the Catz lead, we came back to terms and began to move through them. Catz stern three lost their timing, and we rapidly moved up to a length, moving out to two lengths pretty soon after. A solid win, and a great race.
Semi finals
Beat Wolfson by 2 lengths
Beat Wolfson by 2 lengths
After the big change we made for the last race, we were looking forward to getting onto a strong rythmn early in the race. Wolfson were not as strong as Catz had been, so we moved throught them very quickly. Stride stride stride; win.
Final
Lost to Fitz by 1 1/2 lengths
Lost to Fitz by 1 1/2 lengths
Another great race where we settled onto a strong rythmn. Unfortunately, Fitz had been rowing in their crew for 3 more weeks than us so had more speed than us, although I would say the rowing in our boat was technically cleaner.
Both crews got off to a strong start, but Fitz slowly built up a margin on us. Despite several big pushes, they held us, the moved up to 3/4 length lead by the railway bridge. We kept pushing right to the line, but at the end of a long day of racing, we didn't have the legs to take back the distance. Another solid row and a fantastic result - lots more speed to come in the week before Fairbairns.
Novice Fairbairn Cup (1st division)
Links
Full 1st men's novice VIII results archive
