The Club's Results

We had drawn the most difficult looking heat of the WJ8 competition, so it was with some trepidation that we paddled up to the start line to meet our opposition. A pleasant surprise awaited us, however, when the marshal told us to line up against only one other crew! Four others in the heat had scratched and we were left facing only Oxford's A crew in the competition (they turned out to be Osiris, fresh from victory against Blondie the previous month).

Anyway, despite the difficult opposition the pressure was off a bit because we would go through to the next round automatically on finishing the race. We took the opportunity for a full dress rehearsal to calm our nerves, practising our lifts and pushes, and finally finishing about 3 or 4 lengths down. (Erica)

We invested 10p in a copy of the results from the heats, and were pleased to see that on the basis of previous performances we should be able to secure a place in the final by rowing well. We were also pleased to see the Cambridge lwts record the fastest time of the heats by some way, setting them up for a good race later on.

Meanwhile, conditions on the lake had deteriorated. Rowing up to the start, we were faced by large waves both from the wind and from the launches' wash. The plan was to race for third place in the rep and the last place in the final. In the end, we found ourselves easily pulling away from two other boats and almost level with another, pushing for second place. They put in a big push coming out of halfway and gradually moved away from us. We stayed steady in the driving wind and concentrated on maintaining the pressure in the water, finishing well clear of the two last boats to book ourselves a place in the final. (Erica)

Reaching the final was rather more than we had hoped for at the beginning of the day and a good result in itself, so when the organisers called a delay in racing due to the bad weather, we were almost inclined to call it a day and go home! However, having got that far there didn't seem much to be lost by waiting (apart from risking the wrath of the bus driver who had some drinking booked for the evening). Eventually we were allowed to boat and followed the CUW lwts up to the other end of the lake. We were under no illusions - we expected to be slowest crew in the final and were prepared to go out and row the race for second-last. The start was difficult due to the wind - several crews were blown around and Oxford Brookes took off at a very odd angle and ended up rowing behind us in our lane [to be continued...] (Erica)