The Club's Results

With a couple of key members of the Lent VIII unavoidably on holiday for the HORR weekend, it was decided to race to keep us inspired in the post bumps racing, and to keep our position on the river for future years.
To keep Jacob and Gonzalo involved, we trained in a rotating VIII and small boats until settling into the race crew relatively late.
After doing our best impressions of a tourist information boat for a German couple who were wandering along the bank by TSS and wondering why there were so many boats drifting around, we eventually span and set off.
It was generally agreed that everyone had pulled very hard, that the rowing had been pretty bad, and that it wasn't the most pleasant experience we'd ever had. (Peter)

An interesting experience, particularly having Ali stroking for perhaps the 3rd or 4th time ever. Was decent to the plough, struggled in the tailwind on the reach. Loads of speed to come when returners get in, so the result strikes me as encouraging.

It would also help if I learned to cox men's crews. My entries were rubbish, and as such I damn near hit the inside of all three corners. Having to turn right in grassy is unlikely to provide the optimal line, so there is more speed to come there too. Congrats to the IV though (Swords)

So, interesting. We're starting to approach an actual bumps line up, although James is still in Seattle, but this was the second time we've been in an VIII this term. Maybe third, I forget. And I can't steer the Empacher (yet). That having been said, I thought the crew did admirably well. The first piece did have some pretty aimless moments, rate was variable, cover was very variable, and we struggled to find a really smooth efficient rhythm. We were also too tense. The second piece was an improvement, with better looseness, and a smoother rhythm and pickup. Our corners weren't great, although a lot of that was me, so more speed can be gained there. Still some way to go before it was 'good' though. Hopefully as we spend time in a more settled crew we'll be able to really begin to gel, and get some of the finesse required to move a boat really fast. (Swords)

An extraordinarily windy day. We felt we coped 'reasonably' with the wind, however the largest of the boatstopping gusts were truly boatstopping. Better rhythm was found when we hit flatter water/less wind. Would have been interesting to see what kind of time we did in flat conditions, but hey.

Beating Pembroke was encouraging, however more is needed to retain. Additionally, I suspect that with the amount of noise in these results added by wind, they show little of use. (Swords)

A bit complacent, and we paid the price, no crew should ever lose by two inches, a lesson well learnt. That having been said, it was a good race. We went down pretty quickly off the start, ended up about 1/2 a length down. The gained back to about 1 foot up at the railway bridge, but their final sprint was better. (Swords)

Churchill's race plan seemed to be "sprint bloody hard, and see what happens", and to be fair to them, they executed that very effectively. They were 1/2 a length up at the railway bridge, but a combination of our advantage on that corner, and them blowing saw us home to a clear water win. (Swords)

Similar to the Churchill race, but Magdalene didn't blow as hard, and hence we had a smaller margin. (Swords)

1/2 to Final, 3/4 to Rep. Disappointing to miss out on the final by such a short margin, encouraging to be so much closer to a crew which beat us convincingly last round. (Swords)

Blew pretty badly after about 1400m. Doing 2 2ks beforehand probably didn't help. (Swords)

Not really very together, issues surrounding boating meant we had a shortened warmup, which was not idea, considering we had a sub on board. Spannered along at 36, would have won this heat had we rowed a bit better. (Swords)

4th 2k piece of the day, we blew pretty hard pretty early, but dug deep to hold of the other two crews. A committed row, but more sharpness/looseness needed when fatigued. (Swords)

Nice job, still the biggest dogs on the cam! Good luck tomorrow (John)

Decent start, settled a bit short though. We then proceeded to get into a race rhythm, and entered grassy. At this point behind us, Pembroke started sprinting, so we took it up. I failed pretty hard at Grassy, fortunately the crew were easily capable of bailing me out, and we rowed off happily, Pembroke got bumped about 5-10 strokes out of Grassy, and we battle paddled to the line, as 3 sets of bumps happened behind us. (Swords)

We had a more energetic start, aiming to settle onto a racier rhythm, aware of Caius' ability to sprint. This we did pretty well, and looked pretty decent. We shortened up a touch coming into Ditton, and this cost us badly. They closed to around a canvas near the exit of Ditton, at which point we hit the headwind, had a couple of scrappy strokes, and with a crew as good as Caius behind us, a couple of scrappy strokes was all it took to end this defence of the Mays headship.

Gutted. (Swords)

Well done nevertheless, guys! I watched you from Grassy and you put up a GOOD FIGHT!!! :-) (Ulrike)

Again, gutted. Raced pretty well, however Downing sprinted better.

Bumped at the entrance to Ditton (Swords)

St Catz have a hell of a lot of horsepower, we sprinted, they sprinted faster, it was all over by the plough.

This set of bumps has been intensely disappointing, I've spent a great deal of time and energy getting myself to a standard of coxing such that I am in the 1st VIII, and unfortunately, on some levels, I have arrived a year too late. Losing headships is pretty awful really, however the manner in which this one was lost does give significant room for hope of a rapid return to form. This VIII was not 'bad', it may have been slower, but it was by no means technically bad. It is encouraging that without the huge amount of experience of previous years, without many weeks of JPD and other bufties, we still produced an VIII which was (in my perhaps dubious opinion) technically good enough to row over head. This shows to me that the system now in place with Lianne will, physiology allowing, produce eights of the required speed to put this club back where it belongs. It is now up to Jacob and the MLBCs to find these physiologically gifted people, and current members to train until they are pulling the required times, such that in a few years time, it's FaT, not Caius, who rock up to bumps with eight massive ergos, and a technically excellent crew. (Swords)