The Club's Results

We lost to Bedford schoolboys... :-( but I guess you had to drag along a clueless 5 man, so its probably excusable. (Peter)

The best thing about this race was that it was pretty bad, yet we still beat all the 'slow colleges' by quite a way. In Bumps M1 clearly has nothing to fear from behind, the focus is all about how far up the charts they can move. The race was supposed to be focussed on cementing the changes we'd suddenly made last outing. Instead, Catz M1 caught a crab in First Post Corner and it quickly became all about getting past them as safely and efficiently as possible. Rather unhelpfully we went a little wide around Grassy coming into an overtake manoeuvre with overlap on the inside line, luckily Matt's forearms just about survived tanking us around. Down Plough Reach it was get past them or lose the line around Ditton, so we got past them...just. We had to couple a push with some slightly aggressive cutting up to rescue the corner. By this point everything was a frantic mess and all people seemed to care about was doing what they could to fuck off into the distance...no cohesion. Perhaps a saving grace, once we'd struggled up to the kink everybody committed to building for the finish and we got a little surge in speed and a stupid "We <3 Newnham" t-shirt for our efforts. We're capable of going a lot faster; bring on Bumps. (Thornton)

Our chance to practice our start against not-M2, and my chance to explore the other side of the river in hopeful preparation for the final. Our start was demonstrably effective, the bounds of my water were less clear. Meadowside really is a bitch, the Bumps line fucks with you. Oh well, we were far enough ahead that it didn't matter, and I was now prepared to deal with the final should the need arise. (Thornton)

Having practised bumping us during marshalling, multiple times, nothing gave me more pleasure than to see Jesus edge slightly ahead in the first few strokes. They had gone off hard, and they were going to blow just as epically. We started to move through them about 10 strokes in, then we quickly opened up clear water and sat there. The rest of the race was uninteresting. (Thornton)

An intense race. From what I remember, Downing gained slightly off the start, but we moved steadily through them up the Reach ending up a few seats ahead. At the Railway bridge they took control again, taking back our lead with the inside of the corner and moving ahead by a seat or two with a push. We kept to our rhythm and held them. Coming into our advantage around Morley's Holt, we stepped it up and began our battle. In the words of Neil, "Yeah boys, yeah, moving on your corner, yeah, yeah, you are going through them boys". Through them we went, just. Ming maintains we won the race by sheer force of will. I can't wait till we meet them in Bumps, knowing we are faster whilst hopefully remembering how to row. (Thornton)

Having given Caius quite an audible shock in our race against Downing, we knew there was no surprising them. We arrived at the start line with some of the crew still trying to catch their breath, the encroaching evening laying a very silent river. The marshals spent quite a while getting us lined up (and rather insistently 'straightening up' Caius - I feel they knew what they were doing Pembroke...), clearly expecting this race to mean something, and then we started. We held Caius in the start, we may have even edged slightly ahead; that's what happens when you're the underdog. We found our rhythm easily enough, still holding them. And then we realised just how much force of will beating Downing had taken. Caius started to pull away gently. At the railway bridge we would have an advantage. We waited, and then we tried to move, but we had nowhere to go. Caius remained ahead, and we were beaten.

Oh, one more thing, it is seemingly possible for both stations to take constantly diverging lines down the course. (Thornton)

Summary for now:
Quicker than Queens' off the start.
3 boat sandwich fairly imminent.
Overlap in the Gut/Grassy.
Queens' go so wide they need hand-assisted steering.
(Iain questions umpire over potential technical bump in Grassy.)
Horrendous wash down Plough Reach makes effective rowing pretty impossible.
Looks like 2's blade will have stern contact.
Queens' do some pushes down Plough Reach, keep just off us.
Queens' escape wide around Ditton, slowly moving away.
The wash has done it's damage, we fall back.
Queens' bump LMBC, we steer to avoid.
Queens' clear in the direction we have steered, we hold it up.
We start rowing again but the Chief Umpire fears we will kill LMBC so stops us and awards a technical row over. (Thornton)

Coming into this, we knew Queens' were capable of bumping, and that we had to be quick in catching them. A quick start got us the first whistle coming into First Post Corner, and despite water coming over the saxboard from some pretty hefty wash, we closed Queens' down pretty effectively into Grassy.

The crew gained overlap through the second half of the corner, with Queens' having to hand-brake turn to correct a wide line, and we should have killed it here. Unfortunately, some confusion, and more wash, meant the bump was missed, and Queens' pushed back out to half a length. We stayed in touch with Queens', but didn't come as close again. They bumped out halfway down the Reach, and we were caught on the wrong (right?) side of the carnage and were forced to hold it up. With Jesus floundering in our wake, it was deemed acceptable to award a technical row-over.

Kudos to Queens' for escaping today. A more clinical row is needed tomorrow to set up the rematch. (Sam)

Off to a very solid start, the first whistle sounded just as we settled into a solid R37 off the stride. Whistle two and three came in quick succession through the gut.

Coming out of Grassy all hell broke loose: a lot of noise coming from the bank, waves breaking over Sam's saxboard in front of me and a pretty unsettled few strokes.

We missed the bump by a painfully small margin, and had a bad row down Plough reach. Coming into Ditton we didn't have enough left in the tank for another push and so began to fade.

Even though Jesus were no where to be found (already 5 lengths behind by the Plough judging from the video), we were happy to finish the race early with a technical row over. When Queens did eventually bump Maggie, they failed to clear quickly enough, forcing us to stop rowing.

With a few tweaks to our strategy we should be ready for a good race tomorrow and a rematch with Queens on Friday. (A.B. Abbasi)

For a crew rumoured to have a slower average erg than our M2, Maggie held out a reasonably long time, closing Queens' to half a length.

However, one does not simply escape winter on the Cam. We cruised through the Gut with more composure than yesterday, and got our first whistle a few strokes out of Grassy. We bumped coming into Ditton. (Sam)

More rage needed. (Sam)

Missing Queens' is a big disappointment. Over the term, the boat has improved quite dramatically, and we feel that we have underperformed this week.

We certainly gave Queens' a good race to Ditton. Coming into the corner, we had a couple of feet of overlap, but I think we steered for the bump, and missed. These things happen. We stuck religiously to our plan, and blew so hard at Ditton that we managed to row more slowly than Jesus, who came as close as 2 feet from our stern before fading.

I remember sitting down at Dinner last year, and essentially saying that down 2 was a fair result. We had worked Queens' hard, and given a good account of ourselves. Since I had committed to going hard off the start, and blowing somewhere around the main, I don't actually know what was said last night about this set of Bumps, but I hope it was this: No, we shouldn't be happy with our results this week, but when we look back to our assessment of last year, we can see that the club is in a much healthier state. We go to race HoRR in a couple of weeks intent on proving that.

With continuing drive to improve, more rage, and regular opportunities to smash stuff, the May VIII should be a fast one. (Sam)

We went into this race with the attitude that we would bump Queens' somewhere around Ditton or die trying...and we died, hard. (Thornton)