The Club's Results

http://xkcd.com/77/ and I was bored of the internet.

BPBC had put in a pretty good time for the 3000s in 2005 with their elite 4-. But I had two days to spare so added some extra peaks (including a second ascent of Snowdon by a different route) and took all my camping gear with me making it the 3000s - extra. Throughout the year I'd had my suspicions that a ham sandwich would in fact be quicker than Laffan. I was time to put it to the test. So the FaT elite 2- trekked into Wales with the sandwich in the bow seat.

We made a strong start from Nant Gwynant and the first ascent of Snowdon was pretty rapid. Then off the top via Y Lliwedd and back up Crib Goch for the second ascent of Snowdon. After coming off the start we hit a reasonable rhythm and were still moving pretty well at this stage. The ridge at Crib Goch turns out to be quite narrow and, with 10kgs of kit, we had some issues with balance, particularly as there was a reasonable cross wind.

The next climb came, after descending to sea level, up Elidir Fawr which in English means calorie deficit. By now we had fallen below race pace and I was beginning to suspect that the bow man wasn't pulling its weight. At the top of the climb it was clear that the ham sandwich was quicheing, and I was pretty hungry so he would have to be cut from the crew. So the elite lightweight 1x proceeded through the Glyders to Tryfan to conclude the first day. Jumping between Adam and Eve on the top of Tryfan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tryfan for photo) was entertaining but probably not the best idea without the bowman to provide assistance if I screwed up. So I took JPD's advice - "Just don't spaz it up".

At least for the first day I could see where I was going. The next day, though the Carnedd section, I might as well have been playing blindfold navigation games. Luckily I managed to avoid doing a Garrod and kept it within the lanes but was significantly slowed down by taking the scenic route. The latter half of the course was over fairly quickly but I'd gone off too hard having underestimated how difficult 14,000ft of ascent with camping gear would be. Unable to sprint (or walk) for the line I was now back to coxing weight and maybe that's the best option.

Results: Laffan beats ham sandwich, verdict easily. Single sculls are pretty boring. Sub 10 is achievable - in fact, the 4- probably would have done it if they had stayed at the top of Snowdon overnight and started from there, as the official route requires. (M-C. Chung)

After our dangerous forays into over-preparation with a whole 4k of practise outing on the windy bit of Nene next to the lake, we meandered upto the start with a good few minutes to spare (in spite of discovering on boating that Sen joins other FaT boats in not having heel restraints...). However, on arriving, the umpire informed us that "the rest of your race is on the start", so we rushed to get attached, before further being informed that we had 4 minutes to go...

Anyway, onto the race. Laffan had informed me that the IC pair we were racing was going to be good, so we had to beat the Staines pair to progress. So, going off the start level with staines and a length and a half up on IC was a bit confusing. However, in the moderately choppy water I hit a wave, semi-lost control of the blade and a length disappeared. After that, IC got into their stride and powered away, just pipping Staines on the line with both finishing in 1:40s. As we guessed from the other heat times (next quickest being 1:45, 1:46, 1:49...), Staines and IC went on to win the two semis and finish first and second in the final. ah well, I seem to be good at picking bad draws this year.

Comically, when we watched the final we discovered why IC were slow off the start; the crew next to them, doing a fairly ordinary looking start, managed to get 3 draw strokes in before IC had put their blades in for the second. By about 150m in, they were rating a good 30 or so, and by the finish line they looked as if they'd just about got upto their 2k race pace and were ready to cruise, whereas the crews around them seemed to have mostly blown up with 100m to go. Had nobody told them they were coming for sprint racing? (Peter)

I did enquire afterwards and it turns out they geared the blades really hard for the tailwind and then took another pair of clams off at the start. We don't really do sprint racing at IC ;o)

Nice to see you all at the weekend though; good luck for the new season. (Erica)

Saturday: 1k

This was our first multi-lane straight-line regatta, and whilst the result didn't go quite to plan it was nevertheless a fantastic experience. The hugely unlucky combination of 13 practice outings and an unnamed boat was probably the source of such horrible racing conditions, giving us an interesting paddle up to the start. Having successfully negotiated the stake boat, our start was actually alright and we settled into an ok rhythm, if lower rating than we'd done in practice. However, the experience of the other crews started to show, as we hit a few waves and wobbles around the 500m mark they were out of vision and had been for some time. We managed to keep it together and successfully stayed in our lane (maybe getting a little friendly with the buoys at some points) thanks to some great steering from J, but the rowing wasn't nearly as good as some of the stuff we'd done the previous week and we came home about a length and a half behind the second-to-last crew. Annoyingly we might have beaten the AK pair that got a by straight to the final, but it was all good experience and definitely some positives to take into Sunday. (Charley)

Sunday: 500m

This one seemed a lot more manageable after Saturday (especially since the longest piece we'd managed in training was about 600m). We planned to go off hard and keep it hard til the end, which we (almost) achieved. Again pretty crap conditions, with the wind and rain on and off throughout the day it obviously came back strongly for us. Our start was good, rated higher than yesterday and generally much better rowing - more controlled and a lot stronger with the mantra of "blades in, knees down, grip up" on a constant loop. Today we managed to keep just behind the leaders, and despite a wee diversion to check out lane 2 we were still (optimistically) in with a chance when we started our all-out last 20 push. However, with about 60m to go my blade got stuck in a wave and I caught my first crab in a race (ironically in what was probably my last for FaT), although we recovered quickly to finish a slightly less comfortable second. The whole weekend was great racing experience for both of us, and would highly recommend it to anyone hanging around next summer.

Massive thanks to John, Will, Philipp, Rich, Tom and JPD (and Neil for staying quiet!) for their invaluable coaching and encouragement - we've learnt a huge amount over the past 4 weeks even though we don't have a pot to prove it! (Charley)