The Club's Results

On arriving at the boathouse, we found the NM2 had not left the elf hats out for us. This meant we couldn't contemplate losing in the first round, being the only crew not in fancy dress. This was quite an eventful regatta given that Jamie was injured after a collision with another boat on the row down and the cox box wasn't working so despite me shouting at the top of my voice, bow 4 couldn't hear anything. During the race, we were clearly the faster crew but we certainly didn't make it easy for ourselves with many crabs from everyone and Matt, who was subbing in, had his foot straps come off. Every time we had a couple of clean strokes, we would pull ahead several seats, but the crew kept the audience in suspense all the way to the finish by crabbing over the finish line. ( Song)

This race was much better than the first, although there still were quite a few crabs and Matt stopped rowing again due to his foot straps coming off. Despite the loss, this was a good experience which we can take into Clare Novices. ( Song)

Today's race demonstrated that it is possible to completely separate a seat from the sliders midrace, and rowing arms-only during a race at stroke has a strong negative effect on boat speed, timing, and balance, and should be avoided in the future. Luck was on our side, however, and the considerable lead we had on Madgalene NW1 allowed us clinch a win. As I spent a good chunk of the first race sitting the boat to victory, congratulations are due to bow seven, and I expect to lose my seat to a half-eaten ham sandwich and/or mars bar in the near future. (Alexa)

A complete lack of practice of racing starts as a full crew meant that our start was predictably poor, and after an early blade clash and a crab (or two?) we found ourselves half a length down on the Jesus boat. We soon found a reasonably good rhythm though, and despite plenty of bad strokes we were clearly the faster boat and soon took the lead. We continued to pull away until the finish, winning by a good length or two. It was a little sloppy at times, but overall a fairly decent first race. (Andrew)

The sadistic marshals decided to start our race with the two crews pointing towards each other. Needless to say, within 10 strokes we had a hefty collision on our hands. Credit to the rowers, despite finding themselves 1/2 a length down after this they continued to work hard and we started to move back fairly quickly. 2 stopped rowing for a while which threw my steering a little but halfway down the course we settled on a comfortable rhythm and eased passed Jesus beating them by 1 1/2 lengths. (Douglad)

After a much better start, the two crews seemed to be reasonably well matched for the first 150m or so. Unfortunately for us, however, the Christ's boat didn't seem to understand the concept of rowing in a straight line. The first time they veered into us the resulting blade clash disadvantaged both crews equally, and once they were back on their side of the river we managed to pull ahead by about half a length. The second time they veered into us, we weren't so lucky. A huge blade clash which caused a couple of crabs and most of bowside being unable to row allowed Christ's to take the lead, and by the time we had regained a decent rhythm they had pulled out a length and a half, which they held until the finish. Despite Yimin (our bank party for the day) fighting our case, the marshalls made the outrageous decision not to disqualify the Christ's boat. A disappointing end to the regatta, but we were able to take solace in the fact that, before they ruined our race, we had half a length on the crew that went on to win the NM2 division. (Andrew)

This was a stupid race. Incompetent umpires failed to disqualify Christ's despite their repeated attempts to break our boat and our 7-man. We moved slightly off the start and were about level when the first crash happened. We came out the worse from this but continued to hold Christ's down the reach. It looked like we were in for a close race before their cox decided to veer into us, 100m before the finish, causing our 7-man to catch an overhead crab and the race was over. Christ's went on to win the division so if it wasn't for the poor umpiring we probably would have won some free cocktails. (Douglad)