The Club's Results

A very good result for the third VIII, apparently only 10s slower than Sidney I and beating amongst others Robinson II (5 places ahead in the Lents), Girton II (2 ahead), Selwyn II (directly ahead), Downing III (2 behind) and Fitz II (3 behind). Jesus III (starting directly behind) did not race. (Martin)

Excellent result. Only our second ever head length piece (the first being a minute and a half slower at a rating 5 pips slower) and our fourth outing. The best news for us is that we have plenty of room for improvement... we will be much faster come the bumps! (Michael)

Maggies coach was overheard on the bank beforehand saying that many crews would push too hard and then burn out, and not to worry about boats pulling away.

Sadly for maggie, they seemed to take this to mean that they didnt need a fast start. They were half a length down after our draw strokes, and even further once we'd wound.

They held us just short of having clear water up the long reach, with the slight bend to their advantage, but by the railway bridge the result was clear.

A big push near the end saw them closing, but never putting us under pressure. A nice row, and a satisfying result. (snowball)

Caius III start the bumps a little way down the 4th division, compared to Maggies 2nd in the 3rd division. You might have expected a walkover, but they certainly were not. Caius often promise to have a good 3rd Lent VIII, but have recently been off target. Last years comedy effort (no lifejacket on the first day of the bumps?) this certainly was not.

We had the towpath side, and so the initial advantage, but after we took a little off them on the start they held us. They tried to draw level just before the railway bridge with a big push, but we responded well and held them off. By the time the bend was well in their favour they were too tired to push us, and we were able to pull away with ease. Well done to Caius though-they pushed us a lot harder than Maggie. (snowball)

Another excellent start saw us steal the early initiative. All day we've consistently hit 38 to 40 on the wind, striding down to about 36, and this was the same. Once we'd settled we held onto a slim lead for about a minute. Then Clare pushed. We we're already flat out, but they had another gear. Lifting their cruising speed with ease, we were finished well before the bend came to our advantage under the railway bridge-they knew what they were doing.

Clare III have yet to get on, as do Clare IV, who made the final from the other half of the division. Sadly their 1st boat was not in action, and their 2nd VIII scratched this morning. (snowball)

Just a brief addition: We lost to pots hungry Clare II rather than Clare III (through explanations to long-winded and implausable to go through). The 3rds have, however, beaten Maggie and Caius III demonstrating that we are the fastest 3rd boat and worthy of our high position in the bumps. (Michael)

This was the most exciting bumps race I've been in. It went as a bit of a blur-not because it was quick, but because so much happened!

We closed about half a length off our start, but some panicked rowing saw us loosing boat speed once past the motorway bridge, and selwyn were able to hold us. We slowly clawed into their lead, however, and were getting two whistles by the exit of 1st post. This is where it got really messy-a number of bumps meant that boats were all over the place, and although I could hear Iain screaming for us to go wide around grassy, Andy couldnt, steering a mean tight line. He got the idea in the end, but by this time the only way we could avoid the boats ahead was by shooting straight across the corner. We weren't able to bring the boat around properly in the space left, but fortunately there was no sickening crunch of the bows hitting the bank. Then again, we weren't in Peter Brandt...

We did, however, find Catz II with our blades, and some nasty clashes saw us grind to a halt. Once we pushed off I thought Selwyn II would be miles ahead. Our rowing became a lot more relaxed, but it turned out to be very effective. We rapidly cut into Selwyn's lead, and hit them just after ditton.

A hard row, but very enjoyable.

Tomorrow we chase Girton II, who went past Clare II (who crashed) but were awarded a technical row over due to carnage. (keef)

Clearly Selwyn have been practising since the Robinson Head - they held us off very well at about 1/2 length until we crashed. It looked like we were in for row over, despite Andy's suggestion that we still had the reach to catch them... I thought the 1/2 a length call when we going round ditton was a lie to make us go faster.
A superb piece of determination from the whole crew, but it has to be said we were quite lucky - Selwyn would have almost certainly caught Girton if Clare hadn't crashed. (TomC)

This was a much better race. We made a start and stride at similar ratings to yesterday, but today we acted as a confident and together crew. Girton lost stern pair for a couple of strokes, but that was enough for us to bump them.

The real racing starts on Friday! (Michael)

We knew we would need a lot of luck to get a bump today. The Clare II boat infront of us (probably the fastest boat in our division) was after driftwood. We could have caught them if they'd started like the did on Wednesday, but they didnt, holding us at station and then pulling away. They bumped just before grassy, at about the same time the other two boats we could have overbumped or double overbumped.

We had pulled away from Girton from the start, who were being reeled in by Selwyn, but sadly our entertainment was cut short by Clare II. Possibly the best boat at spannering in our division (although binson II got the awards in the first few days) they pulled in on the inside of grassy. Or at least, they stopped on the inside of grassy and then drifted out to block the entire river. We scraped through, but they closed the small gap that was left before anyone else could take advantage of it. We were left to row out the course with no-one ahead of us, and without a single sighting of a boat behind. A rather eerie experience... (keef)

A very strange day. Having already considered the carnage generating potential of Clare II we already had warning calls, so when they did indeed start their (record breaking fined) post bump random motions a quick call of "Easy, Strokeside Blades In, Blades Out, Go!" was quickly followed leaving our boatman watching in disbelief that BP3 was still a single entity and the only boat left racing. We tried racing the rest of the course, but once we realised we had at least a long reaches distance on the next boat we moved to half-pressure.


The plan now is surely to hold Pembroke ahead until Clare II decide which bank/corner/barge they want to hit, let Pembroke bump them out and then go for the overbump on Catz ;-) (Michael)

As usual Clare II were determined to muck up the division and did their usual hold up everyone behind them tactic after bumping. Unfortunately for them we came alongside Pembroke II (who we were chasing) and pulled them and us in, so they only caused a minor distruption. This being the last day we were refused the rerow which we deserved and got a technical row over. Needless to say, this is far from the way we wanted to end the bumps week... (Michael)