The Club's Results

Well, we started out rather pessimistic, having had to swap our crew order from the one in which we had done every single outing of training so far due to the discovery on arrival that the boat was bow-rigged!

Our start was abysmal, but the crew one in front failed to appear on the start line and the crew two in front got their bungline tangled in their rudder strings, meaning that we bumped them almost before they had managed to start rowing. Some confusion over conceding and the foreign Torpids rules left us alongside them before we easied. Pleasingly, the crew behind had not gained on us at all off the start (despite racing in a boat that was probably about half the weight of our Log) so we went into the next race more optimistic. (Erica)

I'll do this all properly in the morning, for the mean time I will sum up the day with 4 comedy facts:
1.We left Great Gate for Oxford at 5 in the morning, and survived the journey with 4 of us squished in the backseat of Honeys car.
2.Our vessel for the day (very kindly lent by ChristChurch) had gone so long without use that most club members had forgotten it existed, and it was dusty and full of spiders.
3.Aforementioned vessel was bow rigged. The vessel in which we had trained was not.
4.We went up 6 and ended up in the 1st division. Pretty comedy.

The crews we bumped were (in some order) Hughs II (a ghost crew), Wolfson, Abingdon, someone else, Oxilp, Linacre. (jo)

This was some kind of special quasi-overbump torpids style, which meant we had to row the log about 1000m, which is a long way when you're rowing in a tree trunk. Still only went up one though. crazy as. (Lilie)

I can't remember which race this was. We definitely bumped someone though :o) (Erica)

We had a really nice start. Rest of the race standard plan: row, row, row, overlap, wait ages for the cox to concede, stop. (Erica)

Well, we had to make this bump because our general lack of coordination and the immense mass of the boat meant that being forced to row over head of the 2nd division was a very unpleasant option. So we hit them. Quickly. :o) (Erica)

we came, we saw, we conquered.

Fortunately for middle pair, this result won't count towards their bumps record. A measly up 6 in 5 would have nudged their average down a tad.

Nonetheless, I think everyone was pretty pleased to win a mini-blade to add to/ start their collection. (jo)

Woo - mini blades, pleased! The ChCh boys seemed impressed and surprised saying they'd never seen that boat go so fast. And once it got going, I can't see that anything much would stop it- if only these hadn't been non-contact bumps we could've done some serious damage! I think the boys could still be persuaded to donate "the Log" to us as a souvenir, I've become quite attached to it..
Thanks to the them for having us over and lending us the boat, taking us to "formal" etc. etc. Though we'll leave mentions of escapades in showers for another thread ;)
Newnham also seemed rather surprised that we were doing so well, which was pleasing. (Lilie)

The hardest bit was extracting our pole-pusher from the pub before the race started.

Not much to say about the rowing really; we bumped them before we were even in sight of the City boathouse. Mini-blades! Yay!

Particular thanks to Jenny whose coxing was by far the best on the river as far as I saw, and to Honey for probably doing more exercise marshalling than we did in rowing! (Erica)

Our one practice outing the day before City Sprints had set us up nicely for some good racing today; the aim was fast rowing with finesse. In this race, we just went fast. :) (Amelia)

Great start, a much better row, and another convincing victory. (Amelia)

Power and finesse, a winning combination once again. (Amelia)

Yay! Pots! V pleased; first race a bit scrappy but all the others felt smooth and powerful; really fantastic starts especially :oD (Erica)

Lots of power, less finesse, but a clear victory nonetheless, and a great start to the regatta season. Light and Dark Trinity come together, victorious once more. (Amelia)

Very well done to our Foster-Fairbairns winners' composite!!! It looked all very tidy and in control but unfortunately never close enough for you to show your real potential... xxx (Pia)

A really good solid row, maybe a little spacky and unbalanced [but partly due to having to row in an 85kg mens 4] - well ahead of the field in out heat, finished with clear water. (Lilie)

SO so close. Very pleased to have beaten a stacked '9s crew, albeit by a tiny margin. Think we all *really* wanted it, and despite a few unbalanced strokes, and not being the prettiest crew there, when we lifted, the boat really moved, unlike the s3 final yesterday [though we hadn't already rowed 4000m today!] and Charlie just kept us pushing all the way, to take 9s at the line - awesome coxing for Charlie's 50th(?!) pot, he almost managed a straight line too ;)
Looking forward to pot hunting over the summer, Go Light and Dark Trinity, woohoo! (Lilie)

After having changed our race time at the last minute due to rubbish Sunday bus services and 'planned engineering works' on the trains, we arrived in Bedford, and after a bit of searching found Charlie and our trailer. Getting the boat off the top rack of the trailer proved to be a bit of a challenge, but we eventually managed, and got ourselves to the start line with a boat, a cox and four rowers, which was really quite an achievement. All we had to do now was row.

Unfortunately rowing seemed a little beyond our capabilities, and we spacked, muppeted and spannered ourselves shamefully along the course. Fortunately, Maidstone Invicta proved even slower than we were, so we made it through to the final. (Amelia)

During our long break between races we occupied ourselves with eating cakes, eating jaffa cakes, eating biscuits, eating bacon rolls and sausages, watching people almost crashing and almost falling in, gaining entrance to the Bedford High changing rooms and promptly being chucked out again, ogling the pretty blue pots and best of all, buying rigger jiggers from Tim Foster's mum!

We also had time to reflect on our shocking semi final performance and to decide that perhaps rowing better in the final might be a good plan; Bedford Star looked a bit more invincible than Maidstone had, and seemed to actually put their blades in.

Luckily we managed a much much better row and stormed into the finish with a win by fifteen seconds. Pots!

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Looking at the official results, it seems that we were only three seconds off the winning pace for both the men's S4 and S3 4+ events!! (Amelia)