The Club's Results

The race down was rather shabby and never really hit top gear. The race back up was significantly better for 1/2 of it, weakening a bit in the Reach and then suffering from a last minute with only 7 rowing. The rest of the 1st VIIIs appear within fairly easy reach, except Downing for whom we are going to have to take things to a whole new level. Which we will I hope. (Dan)

A fairly average paddle for the first leg; we trundled over rating about 30 with a lot more in the tank.
The second leg saw my seat develop problems through the corners, and completely fall apart at Peter's Posts, leaving the crew to finish the race with only seven rowing. (The man with the broken seat)

Not bad. Good enough to win it quite comfortably but a long way to go yet. (Dan)

Rah Rah First And Third !

After rowing flat out into the 20+ knot headwind for just over six minutes, my legs were pretty dead, but it seems it was worth it in the end. Now we just need to row with a bit more togetherness and we'll go quite fast. The race was better than the Head-2-Head, but there's definitely room for improvement. (Matt)

Pretty pleased with this - a definite improvement on the Head2Head. I felt pretty knackered by the end, but looking forward to the next race where I might be able to use more than just my left leg! :) (Dan)

A solid controlled row saw us rate about 29 over the course. We kept it together well, but probably should have rated a little higher throughout. Newcastle Uni behind faded after the first few minutes, but the S2 Lea RC crew who started two places behind managed to come past us near the end. Despite overrating us considerably and being about twice our size, they took minutes to actually overtake once they'd caught us.
Unofficial time by Andy was 18.42, but we're waiting for the official results to come out ...

Update ... Results are now out and we lost to Abingdon's S3 crew by one second. Am feeling very frustrated now. (Matt)

Your time was 18:40. 7th overall and beat Granta amongst others. (Little Jenners)

A really solid start and great rhythm and power over most of the course. Rating was rather quichey but the control was nice.

When we do this at 35 we are going to fly.

I really enjoyed this race as I always do, but it is a pity I have now lost my unbeaten in category record. 1.1 seconds. Grrrrr. Good luck for the rest of term (Ingers)

A reasonable start saw us close slightly on Caius, but we never really hit top gear and the top 3 all separated out down the long reach. Downing put in a cheeky push towards the finish but were never close enough to cause a problem.
It's apparently supposed to snow tomorrow; we'll have to wait and see what happens ... (M)

Not too bad a row. We were a bit tense and nervous on the start and you could feel this in the first stroke in particular. We sorted things out quite nicely after that and had a pretty good race through to Ditton. Not so good up the reach or pushing for the finish though. (Dan)

Another decent row, with generally better bladework and good responses to the pushes down the Reach and out of the corners. Unfortunately we let it slip a bit towards the finish, allowing Downing to close, something we'll work on for tomorrow. (Dan)

Marginally better than yesterday. Same result. Still supposed to snow tomorrow, apparently ... (M)

Phew - quite a fun race! We geared up today and decided to go for it off the start, maintaining 40 for the first 1.5 mins. We closed to a length off Caius but couldn't get any closer, having dropped Downing by about 3-4 lengths. Having planned to race to Ditton it was then a case of hanging on and, true to form, Downing closed to overlap at Morley's Holt. We held them off to the finish. (Dan)

Caius: We were wondering whether they could respond to a sprint. They provided an unwanted affirmative.

Downing: MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA (TomC)

Well it snowed a little this morning, but just as the afternoon's racing was getting underway, a few solitary flakes drifted by as if to threaten us with a deluge of whiteness. Luckily the snow held off and we went for Caius off the start after gearing up slightly. True to form, they held us off at a length before opening out a lead. Downing were once again dropped off the start. The plan to blow at Ditton Corner was perhaps a little too effective and we let Downing get a little too close for comfort after the railway bridge. Thankfully we were nails enough to hold them off and crossed the line with millimetres to spare. (M)

FIRST and Third Trinity gave Caius a fright at the top of the men's division yesterday when they stormed off at the gun and started to close on a Head Boat that has never been troubled so far.

1st & 3rd stormed down the Gut to nearly halve the 11/2-length start distance by Grassy before starting to fall back, allowing Caius to finish off the race cruising comfortably at the top.

The attention then switched to third placed Downing, who started to close on a tiring Trinity, who after the race admitted to hardening the "gearing" of their blades in an attempt to gain extra speed.

Making the blades harder, though, tires out a crew, and so it proved.

Downing were within a length at the Pink House, three quarters of a length at the Railway Bridge, half a length at Morley's Holt, and managed a few inches overlap at the Pike & Eel.

Many on the bank expected a bump, but Trinity extracted their last ounces of energy to hang on and escape by fractions of an inch. (R.M., Cambridge Evening News)

A good solid start and a controlled set of corners paved the way for an extremely strong reach. Despite feeling the most sustainable row of the week, we dropped Downing off the start and continued to move away until reaching Top Finish.
Nice.

Rah Rah Rah. (M)

I was informed at 10:00 that I would be racing today owing to illness with Tom Coker. After spending much of the morning worrying about possible lack of race fitness and that I hadn't done any proper high rating racing in years, I felt somewhat calmer once we had boated.

I think I managed to fit somewhere into the rhythm on the row down and (rare for me) actually felt quite confident at the start.

The start was a bit spacky and first 3 minutes of the race were not good at all although the power was there. Downing were nowhere and we settled into a nice rhythm down the Reach and dropped them even further. This continued to the line. Overall it was a satisfactory row and we have preserved 2nd place for a good bash at it next year. Well done to all and I hope Tom feels better soon. (Ingers)

I was a bit disappointed with Downing today. Despite a good dose of Le Spack from myself they didn't get anywhere near us. Looks like we were 2nd quickest on the river, which is a bloody good result. Great to see the ex-novices pull hard in M2 as well. Training for Mays starts on Monday - let's go and kick some ass. (Dan)