The Club's Results

Despite sending a mixed crew and rowing appallingly, Nottingham was again kind to us, and sheer guts got us a Bronze medal. Awesome! This had to be the first time ever that Cambridge University were represented by a crew rowing with dark blue blades! This was a really fun day out. (Rich)

With 4 survivors from the successful 2nd VIII assault on Nottingham in 1998, omens were good. Again the wind was strong but this time it was a tailwind. CULRC had taken Cambridge I's slot and we were rowing as Cambridge II against all the other _university_ 2nd VIIIs.

Again our start was dire with us totally failing to cope with the conditions. It was proving very tough to get a good connection in the breeze and I remember looking at the coxbox after 2 minutes to see us still rating 40. Oxford Brookes II had stormed off into the distance and would win in a time that would have come 2nd in the 1st VIII category. We were in our customary 6th at 500m but the odd semblence of rhythm took us to 4th at 1,000m.

A sudden discovery of cohesion occurred at about 1,200m and we surged past Nottingham II into 3rd convincingly. We carried on attacking and closed right up on Durham II but their finishing burst took them back ahead to finish a couple of seconds ahead.

It had been a highly scrappy row but we'd covered 2k in about 6:12 I seem to recall so were clearly doing something right. I believe this to be probably my best ever finish in rowin, given the opposition. (Ingram)

Missing a race in the first round was less than ideal! We had a bit of a shocker, never finding anything that even vaguely resembled a rhythm during the short course. We lost by 3 feet - most annoying, especially as Jesus went on to win. (Rich)

Never dropping below 42 for the 300m course, we beat a crew of four very young looking guys from Star Club - highly amusing! (Rich)

Hurrah! A return to winning for the mighty 1st & 3rd, always good to see. This was Dai's last rowing with us, and so we were determined to go out on a high, especially with the uncertainty that now loomed for the May Boat. Three rounds saw us rowing progressively better, although we never quite felt settled. Nevertheless, we had little difficulty, sending Dai on his way with a lovely glass tankard to add to his Boat Race medal!! (Rich)

We were fairly sure Downing didn't have what it took to get near us, but wanted to get Jesus today in order to have a good crack at Caius. We closed just a little, but Jesus pissed off into the distance after Ditton. (Rich)

We decided that a hardening of the gearing was in order, to really fly at Jesus and put them under pressure early in the race. Downing were clearly no threat, having only avoided being bumped by Maggie yesterday because the LMBC cox failed to get them round Grassy corner! The big change in gearing, along with our carrying a mounted video on our stern, meant that we had a rather spacky row and the outcome was much the same as yesterday. Disappointing. (Rich)

Our tactics included 'row better' and 'take the video off'. We wanted to just be more relaxed really, but in the end nothing we did seemed to make much difference, as we again closed up to maybe a length but were then dispatched (Caius all the while rowing in glorious isolation with Jesus similarly nowhere). Very boring! (Rich)

Our last chance to take out those Jesus bastards! We decided to again harden our gearing, although between them Julia & Rob decided to harden 2 notches instead of 1 without telling us. This felt very heavy, and although we were a big crew, even we struggled slightly. In the end it wasn't to be, Jesus again rowing away, and the speed order of the top crews being the same as the finish order. A slightly disappointing week, but a fair and worthy result. (Rich)