The Club's Results
Cambridge Winter Head, Mich Term 2010
A timed head race over 2300m, from the Motorway bridge to the Pike & Eel
Sat 20th November
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1st men's VIII, Student Senior VIIIs
1st men's IV, Student Senior IVs
2nd men's VIII, Student Novice VIIIs
14th in Men's Student Novice VIIIs
Time: 9:42
Time: 9:42
We made up in sheer determination for what we lacked in rowing ability.
Although we started off technically well (we were, arguably, gaining on the crew in front off the start), tiredness set in along plough reach, and we were left but nothing but power (albeit deployed in a sub-optimal manner) to get us through.
By the end, we weren't rowing as a crew, squaring early was a distant memory, and our blades were flying around in all directions (rarely in the same one as the man's in front), but we gave it our all right to the end.
Indeed, even as it fell apart (to the great amusement of Swords and Katie on the bank) in the final 500m wind, we were still grunting, roaring, and against all the odds attempting to drive the rate up.
A bloody good show, in my opinion. It must have been the jaffa cakes.
Although we started off technically well (we were, arguably, gaining on the crew in front off the start), tiredness set in along plough reach, and we were left but nothing but power (albeit deployed in a sub-optimal manner) to get us through.
By the end, we weren't rowing as a crew, squaring early was a distant memory, and our blades were flying around in all directions (rarely in the same one as the man's in front), but we gave it our all right to the end.
Indeed, even as it fell apart (to the great amusement of Swords and Katie on the bank) in the final 500m wind, we were still grunting, roaring, and against all the odds attempting to drive the rate up.
A bloody good show, in my opinion. It must have been the jaffa cakes.
I saw the last 500m of this race, and I have rarely seen a crew who had blown quite so spectacularly, still hitting it quite so hard. It was pretty impressive. The thing which made it trancend the boundary between 'impressive' and 'hilarious' was Dom's grunting/groaning. I can't really emulate it here, but it was a very strange noise to hear from a human being.
All things having been said, I was reliably informed that M2 didn't even exist this term not long ago, so seeing as I imagine you've only recently been put together, that's a pretty decent showing.
All things having been said, I was reliably informed that M2 didn't even exist this term not long ago, so seeing as I imagine you've only recently been put together, that's a pretty decent showing.
Roar.
1st women's VIII, Student Senior VIIIs
6th in Women's Student Senior VIIIs
Time: 10:01
Time: 10:01
A decentish row. Feels like the power is there, and the recovery is largely fine, however it still feels like there are eight different people pushing the boat. With little or no crew pick-up, we had some fairly poor ratio for a lot of the course.
Having said that, First Post reach was solid, and we are far closer to the top crews now that we were at Autumn head. The crew is also very aware of the large changes which could have been made over that course, it is now simply a case of bringing a really chunky, aggressive racing rhythm out of paddling into the ratework
Having said that, First Post reach was solid, and we are far closer to the top crews now that we were at Autumn head. The crew is also very aware of the large changes which could have been made over that course, it is now simply a case of bringing a really chunky, aggressive racing rhythm out of paddling into the ratework
It was a shame we couldn't transfer everything from the previous outing that had gone so well into this race. However, there were some good bits and we know there are improvements we can make.
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2nd women's VIII, Student Senior VIIIs
16th in Women's Student Senior VIIIs
Time: 10:27
Time: 10:27
Harry's first race! Some good steering from him and good commitment from the crew but again it wasn't together and lacked rhythm but hopefully we can improve Harry's calls to help us find that rhythm.
BPBC 1st women's VIII, Invitational VIIIs
1st in Women's Invitational Senior VIIIs
Time: 10:40
Time: 10:40
In an unpreceeded fit of keeness BPBC women decided not only to have a practice outing for Fairbairns but a practice race! Now this was so unthinkable indeed that Cantabs spontaneously decided that the notion "W Inv 8+" on the entry form must have been a misspelling and instead put us in the draw as men. They also had a lot of confidence in our fitness and speed and decided to send us off 2nd in our division.
After realising that there wasn't any W Inv opposition in the draw we thought we might as well take on the challenge and race against the men... and Cantabs came up with the ingenious idea to create a sponaneous time handicap system for us. It remains to see if they actually implemented it...
After an initial unsuccessful attempt to get the timing around the back end together we gave up on that and decided to just make up for the lack of togetherness by increasing the "grunt factor". Cantabs in turn decided to start us first in the division and then not give us more than the usual gap before setting off a LMBC men's VIII to hunt us down. We responded with an epic push out of First Post which helped to delay the inevitable for a little while, but unfortunately we then panicked a bit on Plough Reach when LMBC steamed past us. After some wobbles around Ditton we got it back together on the Reach and found a slightly too controlled but reasonably efficient rhythm for everything but the back end which was still all over the place since we all felt the desperate urge to keep up some individualism. We nevertheless put up a good fight against Pembroke men who came up from behind and held them off pretty much up to Peters Posts. In summary, it was a committed though not pretty row and for a scratch crew we gave a pretty solid performance!
After realising that there wasn't any W Inv opposition in the draw we thought we might as well take on the challenge and race against the men... and Cantabs came up with the ingenious idea to create a sponaneous time handicap system for us. It remains to see if they actually implemented it...
After an initial unsuccessful attempt to get the timing around the back end together we gave up on that and decided to just make up for the lack of togetherness by increasing the "grunt factor". Cantabs in turn decided to start us first in the division and then not give us more than the usual gap before setting off a LMBC men's VIII to hunt us down. We responded with an epic push out of First Post which helped to delay the inevitable for a little while, but unfortunately we then panicked a bit on Plough Reach when LMBC steamed past us. After some wobbles around Ditton we got it back together on the Reach and found a slightly too controlled but reasonably efficient rhythm for everything but the back end which was still all over the place since we all felt the desperate urge to keep up some individualism. We nevertheless put up a good fight against Pembroke men who came up from behind and held them off pretty much up to Peters Posts. In summary, it was a committed though not pretty row and for a scratch crew we gave a pretty solid performance!
Stronger than "didn't give more than the usual gap to LMBC M1"; shouted at us to get moving when we tried to leave a sensible gap to you.
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