The Club's Results

Lent Bumps 2005

1st men's VIII

Coxed by: Andy Wong

Wednesday
Rowed over
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)
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)
Plus ça change ... (Matt)
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)
Thursday
Rowed over
... 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)
Friday
Rowed over
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)
Saturday
Rowed over
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)

1. Din on the bank afte...
2. 1st men chase Caius ...
3. First men powering u...
[more...]