The Club's Results

With the discovery on Tuesday that Matt's forearms weren't up to holding onto the blade for more than a few minutes, an emergency substitution was necessary. Strawson was called up and, after a swift practise on Wednesday (to ascertain that we weren't going to sink) we were ready to race. We think we rowed quite well; catches were mostly going in, we were moving together surprisingly well given the 4 (or 5) potentially different styles of rowing, and both rate and power held together well; the strokecoach failed to record, but Joe said we were at 34+ throughout, 36 down the reach, and 40+ from the railway bridge onwards. The fact I didn't really believe him after the race is most of what makes me think we were rowing quite well.

Sadly my steering was significantly below my usual standard, wandering quite wide on Ditton in particular. Not assisting me was the power difference; even if I went ghost pressure, Strawson could pretty much keep the boat straight on his own... Apparently Maggie went wandering at various parts of the course, but that's not really much consolation.

Anyway, time for fireworks parties. Overall, we would probably have gone a bit faster with some training, better steering and a bit more length, but there's no reason to think Maggie didn't have an extra level if they'd been really pushed. Well done to them, I at least underestimated how fast they were going to be, even after watching them cover 2k in an uncontested race 20s faster than any other crew on Monday. 4 weeks to get the work down and get back where we belong. (Peter)