The Club's Results

Bewdley started with about 1/3 length advantage, although crews should be started level. They moved out to almost a length by about 300m, but we moved back steadily and pushed through with about 200m to go. With about 20m to go, Tom's blade hit the blade of a Cambridge 99's pair who weren't properly in the navigation lane, but we had enough speed and advantage to drift across the line in front. Amusingly, the umpires ordered a rerow claiming we were impeded, but we managed to convince them that if a crew is impeded by an external event and still goes on to win the result stands.

This has probably been our most satisfying result yet - the Bewdley pair were powerful, we had a solid row and even my line wasn't bad considering we were in the middle lane of an unmarked course (with racing and navigation lanes on either side). (JPD)

I think this was the best push we managed all weekend. I called it with about 250m to go and we moved from about 1/2l down to 1/4l up over the next ten strokes. Mainly this was down to a clean increase in rate of about two pips. It seems this Bewdley pair were quite well known in their area for being good (they're brothers so have probably been together for a while) so pleasing to have beaten them! My legs were also absolutely shafted. (Rose the Twat)

We were again in the middle of the canal, and most of the race followed a similar pattern to that against Bewdley - they moved off the start to about 1/2 lenght, but we clawed back and pushed to just a couple of feet down with about 25 strokes to go. They then pushed back to gain 1/2 length advantage. Unfortunately we had drifted across into the navigation lane and got tangled with an eight with about 15 strokes to go. Although we would probably have lost the race without the collision, it was disappointing not to have such a close margin in the final of such a quality field - Bewdley were the quickest pair we have beaten, Southampton Uni (who were beaten by Northwich) went on to win several events through the weekend (including beating us and the quick Cantabs pair), and Northwich had won J2- at Nat Champs. (JPD)

Again I called the lift for home with 250m to go. However as Jon says, this pair were of a higher standard than the Bewdley one and managed to do an effective counter-push. Without the crash we'd have been about 1/3l down I suspect. (Rose the Twat)