The Club's Results

Unfortunately, we beat the 3rds... now that was a silly thing to do. We only beat Jesus M3 by three seconds, so it looks as though we have a fight on our hands for Pembroke Regatta. In the meantime, who's picking up the beer from Newnham? (Albert)

What beer? Did we win beer? I certainly didn't walk over to Newnham at 9.30 this evening to collect 18 x 330ml of Carlsberg... (Honey)

Thanks Bryn - it's nice to be appreciated...

Anyway, as the only novice in the crew this was the first time I had experienced an eight going relatively quickly with some balance (despite my best efforts to slow it down...) and it was good fun - looking forward to the next race. (Mike)

Not bad for a first outing. We would have been a lot quicker without Mike, but beggars can't be choosers.

Maggie (II?) tried to overtake us on the way back, but failed due to a combination of our immense strength and Honey's steering. In your face, Maggie. (BJ)

Another day, another crew.

Pretty good race overall, but our strong restart at Ditton was possibly indicative of our underachievement up until then... We didn't quite catch Newnham II, which was annoying. (BJ)

The planned 'aggressive' wind off the start took us to a stratospheric rating of 32, and after a few strokes, stroke and cox took an executive decision not to bother with the stride. The row was pretty solid until we emerged from Grassy, at which point we all decided that we were going to rest up until the planned 'restart' after Ditton.

This plan worked exceedingly well, as a 30-stroke breather meant that the restart was both powerful and smooth. Luckily after the restart we maintained the aggression all the way to the finish, but being a gentlemen's VIII, we were far too polite to close up behind a women's crew, and decided to hold station half a length behind Newnham instead. (Albert)

So we've finally rowed as our fixed crew - we still need another 9 outings before bumps... Our 1st round win wasn't convincing but nor was it tiring. Gentlemanly in every sense of the word. We were largely helped by multiple Maggie seat failures, but it would be nice to think that we could have raised it if we'd wanted to (and had a cox box). Next round should be harder - let's hope we can reach at least 90% effort! (BJ)

Our hearts simply weren't in this one. We wound to about 30 and then strode to about 28, all VIII quiching. There was a moment when Maggie looked like regaining the overlap, so we took it up to firm pressure and pulled it back. Job done with minimum effort. (Albert)

This time we lost a seat or two off the start, with high levels of spackage and no rhythm to be found for the first minute. Luckily this served as a cue for us to raise our game, and as we found our rhythm so Jesus gradually faded. After this round, we knew we couldn't afford another rubbish first minute. (Albert)

So apparently it wasn't an entirely bona fide Jesus 3 crew... In an ideal world we'd like to be able to beat most 2nd VIIIs too, so that's not really an excuse... (BJ)

This was our best start of the day, and we found a quick but controlled rhythm any beer boat would be proud of. We made ground on Jesus for a while, but the long bend in the Reach took its toll on our meadow-side station, and they pulled ahead to a length after the railway bridge. Pushing hard and rowing our best race of the day, we were simply outgunned... until Honey's expression transformed from defeat to malicious exploitation:

"Jesus have a man in the water! Push!"

Luckily for them, they were only a few strokes from the line, and so both crews left the flailing ejectee for dead and in rather ungentlemanly fashion made a mad dash for the line. Jesus made it a split second before us. The much anticpiated all-FaT final was never to be.

Glad to hear the Jesus ejectorman was ok. (Albert)

After a 45 minute faff over whether or not to race in blustery conditions, we finally got on the water for our much anticipated battle. To the casual spectator it might have seemed like a fight for the position on the river, and the right to be named the 3rd Lent VIII, but deep down inside, all 18 competitors knew that they were racing for free fleeces.

The Beer Boat got off to a dismal start, with the draw strokes failing to materialize, and the Keen Boat appeared to capitalize on it. But with steely resolve and Tom Coker at 3, the Beer Boat found their trademark devastating rhythm and began to haul their filled bathtub of a vessel back towards the Keen Boat. By the time we got to the railway bridge, we had stretched our lead to over a length, but the Keenos hadn't given up. With what seemed like a push of epic proportions, they used their corner to pull the deficit back to a third of a length.

Unfortunately for them the Beer Boat whipped out their secret weapon - the Man In The Water Push. Despite a valiant effort from Rich Fenn to initiate blade clash and force an error from the Beer Boat, we held on to the end, and used the last corner to stretch the lead back out to a length.

TR4 here we come, but alas no fleeces. (Albert)

The start was ok, but the rhythm was never 100% there, probably because of the dirty water. Catz II were never a threat, and we nailed Clare II hard in the Gut, causing them to spin sideways and block the river. The next six crews to come round first post corner had to hold it up.

This was the first time I've been responsible for carnage, and I loved it :-D (Albert)

We were in a win-win situation today; either we bumped Christ's or they bumped LMBC, in both cases we start behind LMBC on Friday. In the event, Christ's were about the same speed as us, so we had to settle for the latter option. There was some optimistic talk of an overbump, but one by one we gave up hope and pressure, maintaining the rate just to look cool. (Tom C)

Not quite convinced it was win-win... Personally I prefer up 1/short race to staying level/long race. (BJ)

We'll need to get a move on and put some hard work down on Friday to make sure we get clear of Caius. Let's hope all goes well - it's not often we get the luxury of chasing a Maggie crew in a downward spiral... (Albert)

Today was always going to be the important day - bump LMBC and go head 3rd VIII, or get bumped by Caius and end up with a mediocre set of Lents results.

On the row down, something felt different from the previous days. The catches were quick, the finishes were together, and (gasp) was that actual work going down in the water? Surely not...

We were smooth and relaxed out of the blocks, absolutely in control and perhaps letting Caius inside distance momentarily. But then one stroke after the wind, we hit a powerful rhythm that we haven't had since Newnham Short Course, and proceeded to reel the Red Scum in. The hooters came in short order, and we forced a slightly scrappy Man In The Water Push while cornering at First Post. It was all over in The Gut, about twice as quickly as we had expected. A triple whammy of sorts - 3rd VIII headship, denied Caius blades, and helped Maggie on their way to spooons. (Albert)

The race felt different from the 5 seat...

From where I was it appeared that Caius dropped out of our radar completely and would never have got close to bumping us - Maggie will probably still spoon as a result of downwards momentum but I think the coveted 3rd VIII headship is ours fair and square!

And I never heard the Man In The Water call, which might explain why it was scrappy...

But yes, it was nice actually to row properly for the first time, especially after the frustration of yesterday. If we do it again we'll have a decent shot at Christs and hopefully save Homerton in the process. (BJ)

This is probably the greatest victory I've had in 3.5 years of college VIIIs racing, even better than beating Caius in Newnham short course. We really didn't think our superiority would be quite so devastating, with some people on the towpath prediciting a sandwich. Humble sandwich for them. (Tom C)

Will Thorne is a very silly boy. (Albert)

Thanks Will for pushing us off every day, for your fine bank partying and hooting and for making what would otherwise have been an uneventful row-over a bit more interesting...!

On the plus side, it gave us a chance to show Maggie III we really are much quicker than them.

PS Albert thinks there should be some sort of report saying what actually happened: there was carnage at First Post so Will told us to wind it down. We paddled through only to be told to wind it back up again (he trusted our ability to row over more than the SU's to give a technical rowover...) by which time Maggie were half a length off us. We chased an 'imaginary boat' up the reach and re-opened a comfortable lead by top finish. (BJ)