The Club's Results

We were quicker on the straights, they were more quicker on the corners. (Tom C)

With both members of the crew now having recorded impressive sculling results this term, I feel it reasonable to add my perspective on this; a substantial underperformance by Tom and Flo.

I turned up at the lock a few minutes before their start because it sounded like it might be a race worth watching, and offered to bankparty them if they wanted one. Unfortunately, it seemed Flo took that to mean that I'd treat them as a radio-controlled double... Tom O'Neill might have just about been an accurate enough banksteerer, but I certainly wasn't up to controlling Flo's unexpected veering.
I can't remember the distances now, but Tom and Flo on bottom station had closed quite a lot by First post, where the meandering started. On Grassy I looked down at my watch for a moment to take a split to the Jesus double, and when I looked up Flo was steering dramatically towards the outside of Grassy. After the uninspiring set of calls: "Away hard! Harder! No, really, more harder!" and 5 strokes of ghost pressure on strokeside they got the boat pointing along the river again, but the damage had been done. 10-15s had probably been chucked on the first two corners, and Jesus were ahead. Mark Beer said he thought Jesus were 2s up at the bottom of the reach, and they'd probably practised a bit; their wind to the finish was at least as effective as Tom and Flo's, and considerably higher rating, and they held their minimum winning margin.

Jesus went on to push Nash and friend quite close in the final, so it was a great pity some reasonably good looking sculling wasn't rewarded with a potential SBR (and Michell cup) win. Apologies for being entirely surprised by and unprepared for the demands placed upon me! (Peter)