The Club's Results

Being a rather random line-up with half of the crew not having been in a boat for at least a year, the expectations (and ambitions) were mixed and ranged from "we should be fairly competitive" to "can we just race past the boathouses and then paddle it home?". Bow four got about 3-5 practice strokes before the start while stern four just "visualised" how to row, and then we were set off. Maybe it was this lack of time to actually get worried about the race, or the fact that everybody had a fairly relaxed approach to this... anyways, I think we were all surprised by how smooth and efficient and together the row felt from the very first strokes! Thanks to this and some absolutely excellent coxing from Jenny the race felt surprisingly short and the boat never felt heavy or unbalanced for more than a stroke or two. Definitely one of the most enjoyable Fairbairns experiences I remember!

Loosing out on the Invitational shield by a mere 10s agreedly was a bit annoying, especially as we could've easily worked that little bit harder (quoting Neill: "You definitely deserved a price for rowing pretty but you looked a bit too comfortable throughout the race") to make up those 10s over the course. We comforted ourselves with the fact that coming 7th overall is a *very* respectable result for a scratch crew, and that Murray Edwards probably had had a wee bit more practice beforehand than we did.

Well done ladies! It was a real pleasure to race with you and I would be pleased to do it again, whether for Fairbairns or for any of the other races around the year! (Ulrike)