The Club's Results

Light Trinity in Molesey + Dark Trinity in Nottingham = a bit of a logistical problem. Oh well, maybe next year. (Amelia)

They say pride comes before a fall. Well we certainly fell hard on Saturday, with our first defeat as a crew. Our race was committed and powerful but lacked technical finesse and togetherness, and we allowed our opposition to come past us at the Cherwell corner having gained around a quarter of a length off the start. Very disappointing, but ultimately a good learning experience for us all. Hopefully we'll fare better at IBR next weekend. (Amelia)

With only one practice outing on the millpond-like Cam under our belts, very little idea of what a "racing turn" involved, and a stroke-rigged boat, we weren't expecting much more than a fun day out at Itchen. The day got off to a flying (fish?) start with this race, however. We had had a lot of interest from more established coastal crews coming over to inspect our shiny new boat, ask about the Channel race, find out why we were stroke-rigged and whether we could actually row (and seeming rather sceptical about the answer). Having made their reconnaissance, they went down to the end of the course to settle their bets on whether we'd fall in or not at the buoy...

Can someone link this to the picture in the gallery of our turn? Anyway...

They can't have been very impressed with it. We lost half a length on the start by waiting for "GO" instead of starting on "attention", made up the difference to be a length up on the next crew as we reached the buoy, but went at least a length past it before even starting to turn, so lost a good deal of ground at this point. Our re-start was good despite a slight crab, and we made up the lost ground quickly enough to win reasonably comfortably by the end of the course. (Erica)

So near, and yet so far!

Our turns let us down again; faced with the memory of our rather wide turn in the heat and the knowledge that the Coalies were south coast champions and hence rather good at this buoy-turning lark, we managed to mess up rather well. Coalporters took a much sharper turn to make up the ground they lost on the first leg and put themselves a couple of lengths into the lead. Our re-start was again a definite strength, and we beasted the coastal IV down the course with lots of pushes, to finish just three feet short of the Coalporters crew on the line. A bit disappointing, and perhaps we have a moral victory for having been clearly a considerably faster crew on the straight, but in the end coastal racing does include the turn and our inexperience just counted against us.

On the bright side, the weather was wonderful, the atmosphere a lot more relaxed than at many river regattas, the coastal rowers very friendly and helpful to incompetent visitors and the coastal IV much admired. I'd definitely go back again! (Erica)

Bit of a disappointing race really - after getting all fired up for elite, and wanting to make the double, we took quite a lot of distance from them during the draw strokes, and never felt threatened. A good solid row though. Of course we'd never have managed it without the Mexican call from the contigent on the bank :) (Lilie)

Fresh from the elation of our elite win, we re-focussed, and concentrated on not embarrassing ourselves by losing the S2 final. We needn't have worried. We rapidly established clear water and continued to increase our lead over the course. I think they lost heart a bit, and crossed the line a good ten seconds after we did. :) (Amelia)

Afer winning the Elite race, we were keen not to embarrass ourselves by losing in a lower category to the home crew. This final ended up being the second-last race of the day, after the Bristol IV had finished racing in their VIII. Our nerves turned out to be unfounded as we took a lead off the start and lengthened it to clear water as we strode to a good race rhythm. From that point Bristol were never really in contention and we took it home for the second pot of the day and the Cleveden Scaffolding Trophy (apparently). (Erica)

A large, glass, pink phallus was our prize. Well, I'm told it's in fact a "yard of ale", but you could have fooled me. Er.. an "interesting" prize, anyway :) (Lilie)

Definitely weren't expecting this. Just WAIT till you see what the prize was... (photos will follow)!

Have First and Third ever won a Victor/Victrix Ludorum before? It usually needs quite a lot of entries (from the same club) but it seems that at Bristol there was enough competition that nobody won more than two events. (Erica)

I've not heard of this before, but judging from a web search the Victrix Ludorum seems to be a prize awarded for 'best performance', or 'the performance of the day' or something along those lines.
Also, Catherine says this was awarded to the highest scoring club - a great achievement to have won it single handedly, well done guys. (Martin)

Go to the Bristol Avon Regatta homepage to see the magnificence of our thirty six inch pink phallic prize.

Apparently 'Victor Ludorum' is for men, and 'Victrix Ludorum' the female equivalent. A really wonderful surprise to win this at the end of a good day's racing. (Amelia)

Yes, "victor ludorum" means "winner of the games" in Latin and "victrix" is the female version of "victor".

bene remigavistis, puellae! (Classicists - feel free to correct my Latin...) (Smiley Mark)

We were nervous going into our first Elite (!) race, not helped by the red and white England blades Molesey had chosen to dig out for the occasion or the large delays requested by our opposition in both events.

Molesey were a strong crew and we were level off the start, then pulled away from them slightly on the stride as we settled into a good rhythm. A series of good pushes kept us just ahead and we lifted it to the finish to take the Elite pots by half a length. Non-qualifying though, so we remain S2 for the moment. (Erica)

A really cohesive and controlled row which saw us begin to pull away from Molesey during the stride, and then increase our lead coming around the outside of the bend. This left us around a quarter of a length up going into the final straight, and Lewis' "this is for your elite pot" push, along with the stagger at the finish saw us cross the line half a length ahead. (Amelia)

Probably our best race so far - certainly our best result! We were pretty nervous on the way up to the start, after being messed around and made to wait by Molesey for a good hour. We thankfully had a good start [this has proved to be a weaker point in some races] a nice stride where we took a bit of distance, and then held it on nice and steady down the course to beat them by a fairly narrow margin. AWESOME!! Afterwards noticed that they had decided to row/ponce with England blades. (Lilie)

This wasn't much of a race really. We didn't row our best, but it was clear that we were considerably more experienced than our opposition, who dropped behind off the start and continued to fall back through the race. (Erica)

A more satisfying row altogether than the heats had been. Llandaff kept in touch (though never ahead, despite their advantage of the corner) for about half the course, and we continued to push to the finish. (Erica)

A useful exercise for timing purposes, but not one we'll be repeating in a hurry. (Erica)

Perhaps one of the longest four hour periods of my life. Deeply unpleasant. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone. Except maybe Dan and Rich, for whom this would probably constitute an average training piece. :) (Amelia)

Even worse than the erg! A reasonable start left us only a couple of minutes off target pace after a very efficient lock-traverse. We passed our only opposition in the WS2 4+ category relatively early on and it was fairly clear that they wouldn't present much of a threat. Unfortunately, we were so quick that we got there before our bank party, who had been held up, and who were carrying most of our water. (Fortunately, this didn't end up being too much of an issue, since we had enough to keep us going until more could be passed from a launch.) After the lock, things went downhill a bit. A massive lump of weed got stuck to the fin and made the boat extremely heavy for a few k, until most of it dropped off leaving us feeling only like rowing through maple syrup rather than golden syrup. This threw us even more off our target pace, and I think it became obvious here that we had little chance of making it under 4 hours, which perhaps contributed to a further lessening of pace in the middle stages of the race. Added to this were the absolutely horrific (I mean it - see photos, later!) blisters on Lilie and Catherine's hands and the stabbing pains experienced by middle pair's hamstrings, something we hadn't quite anticipated. I felt like jumping over the side of the boat at one point (but didn't). Jenny somehow managed to keep us going through the long dark wilderness that is the 8km completely straight stretch (punctuated only by bemused cows, telegraph poles, and the occasional bunch of fed-up scullers). After that, things really looked up again - the end was (metaphorically, then literally) in sight and I think we put in a really good push for the line, finishing a good hour ahead of our opponents but, sadly, three minutes outside the course record. Disappointing in that respect, especially since we were so close, but I don't really think we could have done much better on the day. With more inside knowledge, perhaps we can tackle the course record next year/later (depending how long it takes to recover..)

This race also marked the end of a summer of Light and Dark regattas, and probably our last outing for some time. It's been really great rowing with such a committed and generally-fantastic group of people (including all our various coxes); also, huge thanks to everyone who came along to help/bank-party/give moral support, etc. Ra Ra First and Third! (Erica)