The Club's Results

Would anyone like to own up to talking to Christs about cheese, barmen and gorillas?
http://www.christs.cam.ac.uk/boatclub/node/1616

I also don't believe that we took half a length in two strokes. Maybe their first two strokes took longer than ours. (Peter)

A good row though a bit nervous off the start... we pulled ahead early on and settled comfortable, although we didn't find a really good rhythm until after the railway bridge, when we sacrificed rate for ratio with good results. Crossed the finish with a couple of length of clear water. (Natasha)

Robinson produced a very effective race to the railway bridge, managing to be the only crew not hold overlap to 500m, and gave us a mild scare. However, our rowing stayed calm while they were alongside and without any great increase in pressure from us the margin went from 2/3 length to several by the finish (Pembroke don't seem to have managed to take any margins for any of their races, so the best guess we have is "several") (Peter)

A more competitive round. Robinson made a valiant effort off the start and held within a length for most of the race. Past the kink, we pushed hard and made our move, clearing some open water around the railway bridge, from which we continued to move to finish with over a length of open water. A really good race piece, thanks to some very committed competition. (Natasha)

After watching Black Prince looking sharp in taking down Jesus a few minutes before, I was expecting this to be the toughest race of the regatta. However, some combination of time in the boat and fresher legs from Pembroke's total lack of planning of the draw meant we moved rapidly away off the start and settled onto a slightly more relaxed rhythm off the bridge to conserve energy for the possibility of a harder final. (Peter)

We expected a tough race on this one and we got it, with our alumni holding onto us for a good portion of the race. We pulled ahead on the start but they stayed with us until the kink, where we started to walk away and never gave an inch back. (Natasha)

Iain had warned us on the way down that Caius liked to blast off the start, so I was actually less worried when Caius went 2/3 of a length up than when Robinson were 2/3 of a length down. After Natasha's innovative mid-start push we never stopped moving through them, and I still don't quite know how we went from 2/3 of a length down to 1 1/4l up between strokes 15 and 60; did Caius blow up after 30s?
In any case, with nothing to save for we rowed off into the distance considerably more than Natasha's report credits us with; my out-of-breath counting put the finish whistles at 11s gap, which would equate to about 3 lengths. (Peter)

Like Christ's and Robinson, Caius lined up looking very serious and professionally ignoring our more banterous marshalling. They gave us a bit of a scare of the start, pushing ahead about three quarters of a length. But the crew stayed focused and committed to our own race plan, despite a rather unorthodox push during our build off the start: to which the crew responded well and we surged ahead by half a length. About twenty strokes saw the boats holding together, but a second massive surge sent us ahead, and gradually gave us inches of open water. From the bridge we left them in the wake to finish with about a length of open water. (Natasha)

The gap was quickly opened over a Corpus crew, sadly well out of their depth racing a crew 30 places higher in bumps. It is a little silly that there is no system for ensuring smaller clubs get some decent races, making drawing one of the top few clubs a virtual guarantee of first round exit for a smaller one, unless you have a spectacular year. (Thomas)

A fairly neat New Hall (Murray Edwards) crew, having surprised us by beating a Queen's crew that looked good in paddling, held us close until about 400m gone, when they faded. They will do well come bumps. (Thomas)

A neater start ensured we were competitive throughout the race, and we pulled away coming into the railway bridge, lengthening out to a length clear water by the finish. (Thomas)

Delicious. (Mark)

Another fairly good start meant we were fairly competitive through the first part of the race, drawing away towards the finish. (Thomas)

First race nerves and an inability to find length and rhythm left us half a length down at the start until the kink. We eventually settled and chipped away the inches until we put in a massive push just before the railway bridge. They broke and we opened up a quarter of a length lead which we held until the end. It was a close call. Let's row better than this in future... (Tsunami)

A fairly solid start, but sadly failed to make ground on them within the first few strokes. I think we settled into a solid rhythm a lot better than they did and chipped the seats away steadily down the reach.

Courtesy of our ex-Pembroke strokeman's advice, we decided we would do a "white house" push... since everyone pushes at the railway bridge, we should time our push earlier to break the bastards before they get there. We did this and opened out the clear water before washing them down and walking away comfortably clear. (Tsunami)

Same story as Fitz, we broke the buggers with our "White House Push". They just gave up. We had an awful start, but our cruising speed was much faster than theirs. (Tsunami)

I think these guys were amused to see our stroke man with a Pembroke splash top. I told him that if he mysteriously crabbed, I'd have a few words with him after the race ;).

Thankfully all was well. We had a pretty good start relative to our last race and had us two seats up by the time we'd lengthened out to a steady rhythm. The kink in their favour brought us back level. Unsurprisingly, we both did a "White House Push" and stayed level until the railway bridge.

A few strokes later, and "up two" was called. We hardened up on the legs and loosened up bringing us a few seats clear, a close margin that we held till the end.

It's a big result for us given all the trouble we've had this term with injuries and inconsistent coaching. We're still not quite as quick as we'd like to be given we are facing a lot of first crews in bumps but at least it gives us a foundation to build upon.

Many many thanks to Emma for her support and coaching for the past week and to Rich for writing our training plan. We made such enormous changes in the week we couldn't have imagined we'd make. As also a big thank you to Phil for bailing us out ;).

Bring on the bumps. (Tsunami)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

This was the toughest race of the day, and came after two easy wins in the 1st rounds. Pembroke had won Newnnham Short Course the week before, and had a much quicker start than us.

Our own start was the best of the day, but still left us half a length down. We settled comfortably into race rate at 35, which was the main aim of this round as we'd struggled to drop to a sustainable rate in the earlier rounds. We kept this rate steady all the way down the reach, holding them at exactly half a length overlap. The race was neck and neck under the railway bridge and could have gone either way.

A crab in the final 50 metres coming up to Peter's Posts was the only thing that marked the difference between us and them. They pulled away and crossed the finish line with a length clear on us.

Despite the end result, the race was a good one - at no point did anyone in the crew give up and decide that we couldn't win anymore, and we gave Pembroke their toughest race of the day. We also managed to find our stride quicker, which will be important for Bumps.

Best rowing yet boys. Let's keep it up for Bumps!! (Alex)

This was a no-win situation. Fortunately we won. (Neil T)

We'd had a surprisingly pleasant practice start on the row down, but failed to replicate this in the race. We slowly ground out a lead but we'd need to do better next time. (JPD)

We crossed the line first, but there were no winners in this race. (Phil)

Much better. Jesus visibly slowed after the Railway Bridge. (JPD)

Pleasing. Very pleasing. (Phil)

Owing to a cox shortage, JPD steered us down to the start. Sadly this comedic arrangement couldn't last and Emma took over for the race. Our start was much better than in the first round, commitment when neck-and-neck in the middle third was excellent and Jesus broke around the railway bridge. (Neil T)

Another race, another cox; this one more aesthetic than JPD but no less committed. We moved up seat by seat on Clare until we had gained clear water by around the railway bridge and hung on to most of that lead until the finish. (Neil T)

Another good row, this time with Helena (from the defeated Pembroke Alumni crew) coxing. Clare pushed effectively off the bridge. (JPD)

I tried to psych out Strawson before the race. Apparently it didn't work. Or maybe it did, which would be even more embarrassing. (Phil)

Inch by inch? Length by length, more like. The boys were awesome and tore us apart. Bring on the Lents. (Neil T)

Destroyed. We were tired, but to be honest our best rowing would have made up at most 20% of the deficit. (JPD)