The Club's Results

Basically, we missed our first round race, so didn't race at all. (Martin)

In hindsight, perhaps they weren't that huge. (Dubya)

Stupidly high ratings and inefficiency was the name of the game. (Martin)

Rah rah. (Martin)

The rowing was diabolical, and we quickly lost ground to Jesus ahead and Maggie behind. The gut was very slow and at Grassy LMBC were within 1/4 length. We scrambled and struggled to respond down Plough reach, just holding them. By Ditton Emma were all over LMBC and Maggie put everything into attacking us which we responded to just, by a few feet. Maggie got hit and Jesus were nowhere to be seen so we settled into a 3/4 pressure row, which we had to abandon in favour of firm pressure again by the P&E because Downing were trying to overbump us! What a mess. (Martin)

On paper Emma were three lengths faster than us to Ditton and they had been training to race 500m. They raced 500m, or less. We were hit on Grassy, and there was simply nothing we could do. (Martin)

The first part of the course went brilliantly - we closed on Emma slightly(!) and pulled away from Downing. Downing, a light and fit crew, were rowing a longer race however, and in the reach we began to pay for our early enthusiasm. By the Pink House they were at a quarter of a length and we pushed and held them there for a while, but we then went wide under the railway bridge and they pushed hard and hit us a few strokes beyond it. To spectators it looked like we gave in, but in the end they were going so much faster when we had already pushed very hard, there seemed little more we could have done. The rowing hadn't been pretty, but we had at least sorted some things out since yesterday. (Martin)

Our newly established fast start worked wonders today. A painful race, we held LMBC behind us on distance for the whole course. Downing pulled out a length or more over us, and the top seven crews all rowed over, and all sat recovering in the small area under Chesterton footbridge, with numerous "three cheers" resounding between crews. (Martin)

Mishaps on the day contrived against us (strokeside riggers were all bent on the Churchill trailer). To have lost out by something like a second was bitterly disappointing. (Martin)

After an entertaining trip down which combined doing the crossword with train spotting at Twyford station, we arrived at the regatta site in good time. In what would turn out to be my last action as club secretary, I went to get the paperwork and we decided to get Sophie weighed before there was queue. Obviously it's rude to discuss a lady's weight, so suffice to say that Soph was more than 10kg lighter than the 55kg limit, and at that time only 10kg could be carried. The process of binge feeding the cox then started and she finally scraped up to the limit. Needless to say, this also didn't help get us in the right frame of mind for racing. (Simon)