The Club's Results

Coming into this on the back of a double Head course and a 9k AT piece the day before, we weren't totally confident. However, Rob kicked us off with a storming 1:24 and a 1 length lead. Gregor and Matt consolidated and it remained close between us Caius and the Maggie-scum. Ciptin Din then pulled a storming erg (complete with awesome changeover) that left us with a significant lead before Andrew stepped up and pulled a much better 500m than he had led us to believe he would. It was still close but Graham put in a great 500m to open out a lead and then The Mycroft Monster took over. Other crews had kept their best to last but our cunning strategy paid off with Chris leaving the erg with a 50m lead. Unfortunately a botched changeover (Chris' leg got stuck in the holder causing me to row without legs for the first part) immediately reduced it to 40m and their monster last man (1:22!!!) started closing. However, I did a bit of maths and realised that a 1:29 or so split would get us home so I paced [quiched] myself down to 1:29 and held that to the end knowing that I probably could have lifted it a little if absolutely necessary. Anyway, it wasn't necessary and we won by a healthy 3.1 sec.

Hurrah! Now if we can just learn to row... (Ingers)

Individual Times:

Matt   01:26.9
Martin 01:34.1
Bryn   01:32.2
Dan W  01:33.1
Mark   01:37.7
Dan N  01:32.3
Tom    01:26.1
Chris  01:25.1

After frantically trying to find a sub for Ill Phil, we finally managed to persuade Mark Sankey to miss going out for dinner and race an ergo competition instead. Turning up at the last possible moment (as the crew is wont to do), we found ourselves drawn against a mixture of first and second VIIIs from Mays divisions 2 and 3 (and Maggie's 3rd Lents crew).
Soon it was time for the "Go", and a rather quichey start from Matt had us in 2nd place at the first change, behind Darwin who it turned out has started with a couple of beasts. Martin and Bryn put in some solid performances to see off the challenge of the Evolutionists, but a rather large Corpus crew, erging alongside, had managed to sneak up on us without us noticing. Corpus pulled into a two-and-a-half length lead, despite the best efforts of Short Dan, Super-Sub Mark and Tall Dan. Coming into the last kilometre we unleashed our big guns; Tom caught us back a length on the "Wigglers," leaving Chris with the best part of a length and a half to make up. Coming into the last 20m, Chris was dead level with the Corpus boat and it seemed like a dead heat as they crossed the line practically together in true Boat Race style. Then the times were flashed up and it turned out we'd won by just over a second.
And we got pots too.

Rah Rah First And Third (Matt)

Wahey! Well done everyone, especially Chris for a storming last 500m. (Smiley Mark)

This was quite a comedy event for the FaT women. We decided not to let having 13 rowers (including Fish who turned up pretty much as the start gun went!) to fill two crews get in our way and Amelia Jenna and Pia did rowed for both crews, with almost no break in between.
Everyone did a great stint, but despite having practiced the changover routine we were just not quick (or big!) enough to catch Darwin. A convincing second place though. (jo)