The Club's Results

Lent Term 2010

2nd women's VIII

Cambridge Head-2-Head (1st division), 2nd Women div 1

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Cambridge Head-2-Head (4th division), 2nd Women div 4

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Robinson Head (2nd division)

11th women's VIII, fastest 2nd VIII
Time: 11:40
A good result, and a good omen for the next few weeks.
More to do to win pembroke regatta and blades though against some tougher crews. (Thomas)
We set out in the race with the stated aim of learning to push exceptionally hard. As such we rowed pretty badly, however we pushed quite hard and won. This heartens me greatly, as we've been in this crew for three outings now, so hopefully technical changes will come thick and fast, and adding a bit more finesse to our new commitment to pushing very hard all the time will move some boat pretty quickly. With three odd weeks to go until bumps I believe that the changes we make allied with a greater commitment to really making every stroke count will make us a force to be reckoned with come day 1. (Swords)
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Pembroke Regatta (2nd division)

1st round
Beat ARU by 4 Lengths
Reasonable start, reasonable rhythm, reasonable pressure. If we actually row, and make sure we put our blades in at the catch we will go a lot faster. (Swords)
2nd round
Beat Christ's
Our best row of the day. A reasonable start saw us up, and we produced some of our more relaxed rowing, and as such moved up confidently. I don't know what the margin was, but I'm pretty sure it was clear water, and the crew can be happy with this row. Still more to be done to ensure that the blade goes in at frontstops, not half slide. (Swords)
Semi finals
Beat Emmanuel
A panicked row left us about a length down by the railway bridge. Then Emmanuel caught a boat stopping crab and we rowed through them. (Swords)
Final
Lost to Downing
A less good row. A loss of strokeside connection on the start saw two blades pop out, and we veered massively. After we were straight and racing again we were perhaps 3/4 of a length down, and we then produced a period of really quite panicked rowing. However when we were rowing better we were gaining, but soon slipped back into short panicked stuff. A lot more calm and a few fewer pips may well have seen us win this race. (Swords)
A mixed day for W2, some of the rowing in earlier divisions showed we could produce something fairly powerful and relaxed if we were not under pressure.
However when feeling like it wasn't going well we lost a lot of technique. We lost the definite hands away and body rock that are crucial for the rhythm and balance of the crew and we stopped putting blades in the water, causing a loss of speed and further timing and balance problems.
We will learn from this and be better. (Thomas)
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Lent Bumps

Tuesday
Bumped Darwin
A first bumps race for most of the crew, and a first for me as a cox, and it wasn't exactly ideal from a weather perspective. Snow and a large stream led to some "issues" at the start. We got pushed off, and due to an excess of hats, I was struggling to hear the countdown and to keep us straight. As a result I forgot to tell people to square up and the gun went off with us pointing quite left, and not everybody square. Anyway, we set off, had a bit of a voyage to strokeside, picked it up well and rebuilt from there. I extended the wind to recover speed, and when we lengthened it was looking pretty good. The surge felt powerful and we were set up for a really nice race. Then we hit Darwin. Not much to say really about a race which finishes before the motorway bridge. All I can say is bring on Lucy Cavendish on Thursday :) (Swords)
Thursday
Rowed over
We knew Lucy Cavendish were going to be pretty quick, the question was whether we were faster. The answer was no. Oh well. Clare II bumped Darwin pretty easily behind us, then we were probably only just outside station (hard to see from the coxes seat) on Ditton, then they rowed away from us. They'll hit Caius II tomorrow easily, so we'll be rowing away from Clare II. (Swords)
Friday
Rowed over
This was quite a race. We knew that Lucy Cavendish were quick, and would hit Caius quickly. We also knew that Clare II had a fast start and were likely to fade.

Anyway, we set off, straight-ish, and settled a bit high, so we re-surged to a better rate. Predictably Caius got hit near the Motorway bridge, however they then cleared in front of me, leading to a massive swerve across the river, possibly costing us a bit of speed and rhythm. Clare II were getting whistles behind us, however I was unconcerned, as we reckoned they were going for a sprint plan. Coming int first post the Whistles started to get more insistent, however I stil thought they were about to die. Then we hit a bit of wind onto Plough Reach, leading to a massive voyage of discovery, and I look out to my left in order to get a better view of my new line, only to see the Clare II bow girl. Oops.

Anyway, at this point I heard Iain shout "May be a good time to call a push", and I can't say that I disagreed, so I did. Much quoting of 300 ensued (Give them nothing... Go), and we pushed out to a bit of clear water. They then returned to overlap, with their bowball possibly within touching distance for me, and we did the same again. A wide line (deliberate this time) put me in the middle of the reach, giving us a bit of lateral space, to buy some time. Another massive lift pushed them back a touch, and a combination of the headwind and us moving away a bit seemed to finish them off. That was extraordinarily close. (Swords)
No blades for the week, unfortunately, but rowing over under immense pressure is something that requires far far more cool than simply crashing into slower boats. Row well tomorrow, there is a caius crew out there that deserves spoons.

P.S. From the Clare race report 'It must also be said the FaT II were absolutely nails.' (Thomas)
This was an exciting race, the first captured on TandemCam. Unfortunately my camera skills went out of the window when the race got dramatic leaving a video consisting mainly of the bank and my screams.

A good start and a good row towards the Ditch. A tight corner by Swords on First Post was followed by a not-so-tight corner on Grassy (but not as bad as mine last year on day one). This meant Clare closed and, as the video shows, got within inches coming down Plough Reach.

Coming into Ditton first meant getting hit by the wind first, causing overlap, forcing Swords to go left. Pushes and pushes came down the first part of the Reach, one of the earlier one practically bringing the bow ball of Clare almost in line with Swords. The girls show great nerve to return every Clare push which meant after Clare had given their legs 10, FaT opened up the gap. They continued to open the gap all the way to be several lengths clear by the bridge. (Mark)
Saturday
Bumped Caius II
After stressful marshalling, with Ye only arriving as the division rowed to the start, the crew rowed to the start knowing it was theirs to win or lose.

After the brilliant effort holding Clare II off yesterday, they quickly closed on Caius, who were bumped just after the motorway bridge. (Thomas)
Insanely glad we bumped up, super confused at Swords' and Tom's (outwardly) calm reactions, apologies galore for causing so much distress to my crew - but whew, +2 for the week ;) ra ra FaT! (Y. Yao)
A brief row to the motorway bridge resulting in a quick bump. Up 2 for the week is a touch disappointing, however a failure to blade has far more to do with the way results fell in front of us in my opinion. Oh well, that's just the way with bumps.

However despite performing a bit worse than we had hoped, I feel that the experience gained this week will be hugely useful later on. In years to come, some of these girls are going to be rowing in 1st crews, and may well have to defend our shiny new headship from those nasty people at Downing, or whoever ends up chasing them. The row over in front of Clare II will hopefully have given the girls some belief that they can really push through the pain barrier, and that it's not over until contact is made. (Swords)
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Women's Head of the River Race (Novice VIIIs)

258th
Time: 22:41.8
Hmm... I think it would be fair to say we were somewhat overawed by tideway, but then that's why we did it. Hopefully next time we go, we won't. I for one spent most of my time thinking "there are a lot of crews here" rather than coxing properly, and as such while my lines may have been okay (I think), my coxing was gash. I get the impression that a lot of people in the crew thought something along the lines of "this is a twenty + minute race, I'm going to save something for the end", and as such the commitment to moving fast before Hammersmith wasn't there. Again, probably my fault for a failure to insist upon proper pressure up to that point.

Having said that, I think that this week we have produced some very good pieces in training, and although we didn't produce on the day, we can take that experience forwards to next year. There are 6? people in this crew around next year, and that is valuable for next year. And even though I believe we could have been faster, we still went up 20 odd from our start position.

Finally, this was our final race as W2, and as a note to the girls, you have been awesome to cox. The progress you've made has been epic, and the commitment to training has been really great. So perhaps bumps didn't go our way, and we didn't really train for WeHorr, but there has been a lot positive from this term, and I hope to see you all again in a boat next term/year :).

edit: Times at Barnes and Hammersmith indicate we were 265th then 260th then finished 258th. The fact that we were faster over later sections indicates to me that we set off too gently. Or that may be due to other crews blowing up. Oh well. (Swords)
That seems incredibly even splits relative to the crews around you; two years ago we were 107th, 77th, 85th at the three timing points, and we only gently blew up in the last third. (Peter)

1. Stern pair and cox
2. Past the finish
3. W2 coming under Putn...
[more...]

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