The Club's Results

The men's 2nd 4+ went OK despite not having a cox until Saturday morning. The ever charming Mr Thorne stepped in and saved the day, coxing them through what was, I am told, a respectable performance. (Anna)

As the 2nd IV pushed off at the start, at just past 2pm, we thought it was our day - Tit Hall II had failed to show up and we prepared to do a grind and easy row over in preparation for our race tomorrow. Unfortunately CUCBC had other ideas and pulled us back in to inform us we'd have to hang around for 40 minutes as Tit Hall had turned up but not rowed down because of a marshalling error. Humph. Still, we stuck about, and after seeing the state Tit Hall were in when they finally arrived we were confident of putting in a good performance.

We lined up as lead boat and waited while Hall tried to point their boat down the river rather than across it. Lauren shouts "Attention. Go!" - we go, they don't. We return. The explanation is that they didn't hear the start. We wait a bit longer. More straightening frolics ensue. "Attention. Go!" - we go, they don't. We return. Tit Hall are confirmed as officially deaf. Lauren stands next to us and points the megaphone at Tit Hall. "Attention. Go!" - this time we're off! Winding to some unfeasibly high rating and scrapping all vestiges of the start we'd worked on beforehand we pelt off down First Post Reach. I feel knackered (Bumps styleee) by First Post Corner, but no matter, Tit Hall aren't gaining! We keep it up, the rating that is, all the way to the Reach where we hit the wind hard, slowing up quite a bit and spacking wildly. No matter: we take the rating up. Halfway down the Reach we see Tit Hall come around Ditton and perform the same boat-stopping manoeuvre. With a final push we take it home, and all see that Tit Hall are far from the line. Breathing, shouting, swapping rowers and celebrating all take place under the Railway Bridge. Bring on LMBC!! (Dan)

After the confidence building win yesterday against a rather poor showing from Hall, we approached this race with a mixture of anticipation and anxiety. We were racing the LMBC crew that had beaten us in the previous Saturday's Autumn Head whilst rowing directly behind us and we were once again starting off in front.

They had looked fairly reasonable but by now we had doubled our outings number together as a crew and we were ready to take on and hopefully beat the Red Scum. We were expecting a close race and planned a continuous series of pushes down the course followed by a huge effort into the headwind up the Reach.

After the usual faff at the start while both crews attempted to get lined up simultaneously and avoid being blown across into the far bank, Guy gave a swift "Attention, Go!!" and we were away. No false starts from the opposition today. With a reasonable headwind coming down First Post Reach, the start was a bit slower than yesterday, and LMBC were slowly beginning to close the intervening gap. Sticking to the race plan, we pushed and pushed again, but Maggie were noticeably closer than Hall had been coming round First Post Corner, and may even have been slightly up on us. With both Jessie in the boat and Andy on the bank shouting at us to row harder, we pulled away around Grassy and down Plough Reach. As we were rounding Ditton, Maggie started to close up again and were inside distance on us. Having realised that there was absolutely no headwind on the Reach, probably for the first time in years, we pushed back again.

Just after the railings, with Maggie coming back at us again (why coudln't they just give it up ?), we decided to utilise our special move: the continuous wind; and continued to wind it up until we passed the finish line. Although they tried admirably, LMBC couldn't cope with the extra power we were putting on (including a few air shots and an almost-crab) and finished just afterwards; we won the battle, but the war goes on... Tomorrow it's Christ's II in the Semi-Final. (Matt)

After a brief chat to decide how we would improve on yesterday's row, we pushed off with plenty of time and rowed down to Chesterton, where our bank party of JPD, Henry and Andrew helped us marshall. With plenty of time to spare, we had time to contemplate the pros and cons of a variety of women's boats racing past and Boat Race cox calls (deciding "Panther" was a good call) - but, most importantly that we'd rather shit in our pants than lose to Lady Margaret. We paddled down to top station, and as the first race off, quickly got ourselves ready to race. LMBc - coached by Blues rower Tom Edwards-Moss - looked alright, it was going to be a close race.

After much realignment, Guy got us underway. Our start wasn't as good as yesterday, but the power was still there - once again I was knackered by the end of First Post Reach. We kept it up to the Reach, with a series of pushes. Much to our surprise the anticipated massive headwind in the Reach failed to materialise so we made the most of it and did a push, taking the rating up and putting even more power in the water. All this time Maggie appeared just about on station, but as we beasted the reach it became apparent they were starting to lag behind. A final shout to wind it up came just after the railings, and when we saw LMBC's finish marshall drop his hand after ours, we knew we'd won. Just. Three cheers and much stretching later we were back in the boat and paddling home. It'd been hard, but we'd beaten the Maggie scum! Christ's tomorrow. (Dan)

After two good wins against Tit Hall and Maggie, it was pretty clear that Christs would be a bigger challenge in the semi-final. With Rebecca North in the cox's seat we pushed off as usual and embarked on a similar style warm-up to what we'd been doing on previous days. We were heartened by a late night post on the CUCBC message board by Christs II, asking if they could borrow a plastic racing shell for the days racing...unfortunately, it looked like they'd found one!

Marshalling and going off in the 3rd race as head boat, we had Andrew, Martin and Ian around to bank party us. The start positioning was once again quite tricky due to the blustery wind, but Guy's umpiring expertise soon had both crews ready to go. So we did. First time! Our start wasn't as powerful as the day before's, neither was our stride, so it wasn't really until Grassy that we started to hit any decent race rhythm. Once again our push into the Reach was nice, picking up quite a bit of boat speed, but all the time we could see Christs were gaining. A determined final push and wind saw us home just after Christs - a deficit that was confirmed later as 6s. We'd run it close, but weren't quite good enough on the day. (Dan)

It wasn't a terribly good row, but the guys seem to be coping ok with being beaten by the women.