The Club's Results

I thought this was quite enjoyable. Its got a long way to go before its fast and cohesion was certainly lacking, but had good spirit. I guess we were 7th or 8th or something overall with couple of crews laying down around 18:20 times. (Dan)

We had a pretty good training session at Peterborough the previous weekend and (most of) the crew were looking forward to this, despite fears that yet another tyre on the trailer might burst on the way!

Indeed everything started out well and we had a very comfortable row and had a fairly long duel with Star Club's Sen. 1 crew who eventually went onn to come 2nd overall. However, most of the row was perhaps a little too comfortable, with the rating rarely going above a whopping 28!! This might explain our slightly slow time and lack of exhaustion... At least it was fun! (Rupert the Bear)

The first VIII are great.

They actually drew with Caius. Robinson made up the one second gap so they wouldn't have to split the prizes because they're poor.

They would have beaten Caius soundly if they had had a 6 man with muscle and energy.

For the 6 man his second race of the day was very enjoyable but extremely painful. The group shower afterwards was worth it though. Thanks guys.

The first VIII will go head. I have no doubt.

The first VIII are great. (Dan Newton)

A good improvement from the Peterborough race, but the result shows there's a lot of hard work to do in the next couple of weeks. We look forward to it. (Tom C)

This row was just a massive pile of steaming shite. It went wrong from the end of the first stroke which nobody finished off properly (although we were a third length up due to a complete shocker from Selwyn). We then slammed into the front-stops, hanging for about 4 minutes and then rowing the blades in. This continued to Morley's Holt, during which time we would take a couple of seats from Selwyn and then they would take a couple back. At Morleys Holt we relaxed (probably realising that we were going to win) and had about 10 good strokes which saw us take the extra quarter length. (JPD)

After the turd which was the first race we aimed for a long, loose row. We moved maybe a couple of seats on Wolfson and then sat there, feeling quite comfortable. Personally I really enjoy being in control in a race like this - knowing that the oppo are on 110%, you just have to choose the opportune moment to make that killer push. We waited until just after the Railway Bridge, at which point they cut into us and we pushed out to about 3/4 length. It got a bit scrappier after that, but at least we made a good attempt at rowing properly for most of this race. (JPD)

We took the second row and added some controlled agression. Unfortunately Ed and Chris are significantly stronger than Matt and I and pulled us round about 10 degrees at the start. We crashed into Maggie (sorry guys), rather rudely causing a minor injury in the process.

However, this was our best race - we took control from the restart and laid down some good strokes which saw us take 3/4 length up the reach. They pulled back to 1/2 length on their corner, but we pushed them back up to Morley's Holt. They may have come back a bit at the end; the crew will need to make sure they have learned to finish things off in 10 days time. (JPD)

Emma took the race to us from the start and got four or five seats up the reach. At the Pink House we got some momentum going and got a couple back, at which point I thought we were going to win. However, despite the fact that we were going well we tensed up which caused us to lose that speed and they moved back to five or six seats up. We relaxed again and started moving. The same thing happened again - as we started moving we tensed up and changed how we were rowing, and it got pretty scrappy from that point. I don't think Emma quite had clear water by the finish. However, this was a useful learning day of close racing - there's still loads more to come out of the crew and they'd probably go a lot faster without a couple of fat passengers weighing down the bows who have hardly rowed for the last three months... (JPD)

The first half of the race wasn't great, but pushing Downing miles away in the second half was very satisfying. Since we won't be able to do that tomorrow, we'd better get a bump. (Tom C)

A lovely raging tailwind - why oh why have we never had one until now?! Mind you, wind = good, but just not today. Bring on tomorrow... (Rupert the Bear)

Plus ça change ... (Matt)

there were some good bits, but we can definitely do better.

i think our performance can be fairly well represented by our position relative to other boats:
downing were on station off the start until we got round grassy, therefore our rowing was crap at this point. also, caius gained maybe as much as a length in the same distance.

then we remembered how to row and suddenly downing disappeared behind us and we stayed roughly the same distance from caius until the finish, or perhaps even gained a little.

so tomorrow we row like the second half of the race for the duration. (stroke)

... plus c'est la même chose (Matt)

The minute gun went a minute earlier than we'd expected, so it was a bit of a rush to finish the pre-race pit stop, get in the boat, kit off etc. Luckily I remembered to put my feet in with 8 seconds to go so the start was pretty good.

The whole race was much better than yesterday with some good pushes down the reach, so Caius had to work hard to hold us at about 2 lengths. With a similar improvement tomorrow we should be seriously challenging them, and as Emma failed to make any real impression on Downing we'll have nothing to worry about behind. (Tom C)

I took a short video on my camera of the run into First Post, it is here. (Martin)

perhaps it would be fair to say that our row to ditton wasn't quite as good as yesterday, but it wasn't bad. there were good pushes out of first post and grassy, although it was a bit scrappy in places.

at ditton, caius were 2 and a half lengths off and we did our 'unsustainable push.' it did work well and the boat really lifted, but we were always going to be a bit far away to actually get the bump. it did mean that at our closest point, just before the railway bridge, we were only just outside station.

according to our race plan, this proved to be unsustainable and we died a bit after the railway bridge. this is probably fair enough, although if we'd heard whistles, it would have been an entirely different matter.

we'll throw everything at them again tomorrow. (stroke)

We threw the kitchen sink at them, but sadly they had most of the bathroom to hand. 11.5 seconds down at top finish.

Must've been our best row, was committed all the way with plenty of good lifts. Happy with the performance, but we still lost. Bullocks. (Tom C)

A feeling of deja vu. Next year... (Andy)