The Club's Results

We were both rather tired (one London Marathon runner, one recently flown back from Berlin training camp) on the day, and decided to scratch, since the standard of the opposition was such that we were unlikely to win any races even at full strength. With me hobbling around in some pain and no practice outings, we'd have been lucky to lose by less than a rowover verdict! There's always next year... (Erica)

Dan got back from Berlin at 6am, so we did well to get to the start line. We had a pretty good race, I think we gained a bit by steering the corners better, but they just came back in the headwind on the reach. We were half a second up, but in this game that's a draw.

So we had a 500m rerow, which suited our fast start. The race plan was wind, hold for 20, legs 10, backs 10, arms 10, up 10, and so we crossed the line at about quarter slide. This time it was a very dead heat. We had a chat and decided that we'd concede at this point, since a) Dan was tired and I was racing later in the day, and it was clearly gonna be a while before we got a result and b) the final was against a pair from CUBC who were gonna annihilate us (they won by 48s).

In any case we had a lot of fun. Perhaps we would've done better if I hadn't insisted on only using one clam, to prove that we're harder than Jacob and Bryn. For an indication of the wind speed, we did a fairly shoddy 2k piece in 8:00 last week in calm conditions. (Tom C)

A stiff headwind, Tom looking hard, Bryn looking steer-ey, Sen gleaming in the morning sun... The stage would have been set for some seriously good rowing if I hadn't forgotten to reset my clock when I went to bed at 0600h that morning.

Then again, time awake was time wasted that morning and the panicked sprint to the boathouse without breakfast was more than enough warming up.

The row down was a bit ropey - Tom has a very different style to the guys I'd be rowing with in Berlin, and being back on bow side was a shock to the system. Still, we've rowed together for long enough that our first practice start was solid and I felt fairly confident despite being the smaller crew.

Our start and unsustainable rating quickly ate into the distance towards First Post, and their lines gave me even more hope. Unfortunately we didn't respond to their push down Plough Reach and both crews were level by the end of a very windy Reach.

The dead heat was seriously bad news: Tom had billions of races to go later that day and quite frankly I was shattered. Still, we had our quality start and stupid macho posturing to rely on.

Alas, even they weren't enough and we dead heated again despite an erg-game-style rate and stroke length. We decided to take the dishonorable way out (you should have seen their happy faces, bless them!) as whoever won would be thrashed in the final and Tom had a good shot at winning the Lowe Double Sculls later that day.

Big thanks to Bryn for banksteering. Two very enjoyable races - man, I love small boats! (Dan)

Having almost ejected out of the Grad VIII yesterday, I was a bit apprehensive about racing a pair today, but the sun was shining so it seemed like a good idea.

Whilst waiting at the lock, I came to the realisation that I had omitted one of my more important pre-race rituals - the Preparatory Evacuation. I like to think this gave us a sense of urgency.

The row itself was not too bad, although apparently we did a good job of squandering a healthy lead during the second kilometre (we had no idea as we were chasing). Tom's steering was pretty solid, despite my best attempts to make us hit the outsides of both First Post and Ditton.

We probably should have won more easily, but at least we made it to the Penny Ferry in time... (Albert)

Whilst I was "doing core" in the Penny Ferry, Tom was secretly hoping that I would return too late and get us DQ'ed. Sadly for him this wasn't to be, so we had to race again.

We rowed a bit better this time, pushing our finishes out more convincingly. But the first race had taken its toll and the power was lacking. The corners were more colourful, with a mini-crab sending us to the inside of First Post Corner, and this time I made sure we messed up Ditton by calling a restart before the corner was over.

Seb reckons we lost by about 20s but when the margin is that big it's hard to tell. Thanks to Dami and Seb for coming out. (Albert)

We suffered from indecision about what we were doing during our row over, so didn't exactly race it and didn't exactly paddle it... We more just spacked. At least it gave us the confidence that, however slow we were, at least we were going to make it around the course. (BJ)

We were ahead coming out of Grassy, but then I had sunglasses issues as they fell off my head and blocked my view. I tried to push them back up again but they fell back down, so I then put them on properly and rowed the rest of the race in near-darkness. One-handed rowing in a pair is not particularly clever. Tom called us a length up at the Plough reach timing posts and we put in a bit of a push to go into Ditton slightly up. Unfortunately, any potential drama of a tense finish was ruined by their bowman's getting stuck in his heel restraints and thus steering Ditton without a rudder. The last 500m served to prove that Jacob is more of a man than me and we wiggled our way over the finish line. (BJ)

We knew that we were up against it, as our oppposition had been proven to be exactly the same speed as Dan and Tom. Tiredness meant we probably rowed a bit more consistently but more slowly than in the earlier races. They were 4s up at the Plough so we knew we had to put in a big push - unfortunately they fancied catching us and put in a much bigger one. On the reach our rowing went to pot and they loomed ominously, but we managed to hold them off by about 3 lengths. If they hadn't hit the bank two strokes from their finish line, it could have been a different story... (BJ)

Well, all our opposition wimped out of racing us, so we raced the Men's Forster-Fairbairn pairs final instead of the Women's Madgelene pairs. We reckon losing by 22s to the FaT pair ain't too bad, and Eton Boy thought it was enough to earn us the won-by-defualt Uni medals.. Such a shame not to be able to race actual opposition, but we had a pretty good race. Despite our start consisting of "draw 1.. er.. wind some? go fast.." we went off pretty swiftly, and managed to pretty much hold the boys until about halfway down first post reach [apparently]. Lucw took awesome lines round all the corners, and we even managed to take it up two for the finish. Only one mini crab - our rowing was qualiteeeee. Bring on the summer! ("Light weight" Lilie)

Good, disqualifiable fun! The patented Coker-Jane start (let's go as high as possible and try not to fall in) surprised the opposition, as did my 'aggressive' line into the corner: We were on the meadow side, although you can't tell from the photos. On the plus side, the fact I could be in the middle of the river meant we were already a length up 200m in.

The comedy 'To me! To you!' needs some work, but is basically there. (Dan)