The Club's Results

I was a bit worried on first post reach, it looked like we were in for a close race. What happened after that I'm not sure, maybe we were better at cornering. By my count we were 9 seconds up at Plough, so we cruised (untidily) on the reach. A fair way off our 10 minute target, but if it's less windy and we pull harder there's a chance tomorrow. (Tom C)

Go off hard.
Crash.
Twice.
Still win.
Textbook. (M-C. Chung)

We did well to save ourselves from disaster. Maintained our pace on the reach, and still at 34 when we nailed the railway bridge. By far the worst thing that's ever happened to me in a race (except the time I capsized), we lost Phil's blade badly. I was terrified, and by the time we got going LMBC had taken the lead. So the fight or flight kicked in, and we spanked it off at 36, rising steadily to the line.

According to the ratemaster the time spent rowing was at most 9:49. I reckon without the errors we would've been 9:45, or 94.5%, which should please Ming and Bryn. (Tom C)

I noticed that Coker's stash of university medals was starting to get a bit out of control, and that was when I started a campaign to sort it out. I was successful in the Colquhouns sculling race earlier this year, but unfortunately couldn't quite pull it off today. We hit the grey barge relatively hard (he came out of nowhere (in the stationary sense) so I had no warning) in the Plough Reach which allowed Maggie to get back on distance. We then hit the little sign before the railway bridge pretty dramatically, forcing Phil to catch a boat-stopping crab. Not having been in that situation since I was a novice, I couldn't remember which way to turn his handle, so that took a while to sort out. This time Maggie were inside distance. We went a bit mental from the railway bridge, and won.

We were very keen to go under 10 minutes, and conditions were perfect, so I'm really sorry to the guys for cocking this up so badly. The clock on Tom's rate meter stops when he stops, and that timed us at 9:49, so we probably had it in us.

Fortunately we're all still here for another go next year, and Iain seemed amenable to the idea of setting it up to be stroke-steered. Someone lighter should also sit at bow.

P.S. I've just noticed that Tom submitted a report marginally before me, but I can't be bothered to remove the duplicated information. (BJ)

From Travisty:

"How hard is winning? My mantra is that every race is harder than the last, and it's never been more true. So let me begin a tale of sorrow and woe. In the first term we row in fours rather than eights. A boat half as big needs twice as much refinement and subtlety. It's a challenge, and many crews fall apart (or worse). At the start of November, the top colleges race in the coxless four, steered by a rower looking in the wrong direction. Trinity, naturally, has the only person in the university capable of doing this. The trouble was that Dan had spent his summer drinking and surfing rather than training, and had to be relegated to the second boat, a coxed four. So we got the charming and affable Bryn to do it. The preparation was careful, with much time spent distinguishing "left" from "right", andcalculating how to fit his unusually muscular physique into a narrow racing boat. The race itself is pretty simple: 2800 metres head to head with St John's. We'd established a lead of 5 seconds before finding out what Bryn had up his sleeve. Rejecting the usual convention of rowing in the middle of the river, he preferred to take short cuts through a 50 tonne barge and the railway bridge. The latter was more controversial, and resulted in a boat stopping crab, which left us firmly in second place with only 800m to go. The response was devastating, a lung busting sprint to the line at 37 strokes per minute. We won, but only only just. Dan's coxed four was more convincing, winning comfortably and stylishly. Celebration over, we were left to ponder the irony that swapping the two men would have made both boats faster.

- Tom Coker"