The Club's Results

Easily is putting it lightly. The race was over after about 30 seconds.

3 strokes in, we caught a crab. They pulled away slightly.

Within 5 strokes, we were back ahead.

A few strokes later, their 3-man caught an ejector crab and they held it up to try and help.

We wound it down fairly fast and paddled the rest of the way to the finish. (Barney)

This was a pleasing race.

On the row up to the marshalling position, we played around with crew order and sides, to accommodate our lack of natural bowsiders. It became quickly clear that putting me on the wrong side was potentially an error, as I nearly crabbed on the first practice start. How embarrassing.

Anyway, the start during the race itself was a bit smoother (I didn't dare attempt to feather until stroke 5 or so, which probably helped). Once we went into our wind, it became clear that we were all over Caius, taking a seat every two or three strokes. Some great calls from Tony saw that we pushed right through them seat by seat, and then finished them off by putting in a big ten for clear water.

At this point I blew up pretty hard. My lungs were deeply unhappy with the whole affair, in particular the cold air, and decided they had had enough. I think Adam had a similar experience - I don't know who's idea it was to put us in stern pair! Fortunately though, by then the race was largely over, and we just sat about a length clear of Caius all the way through to the finish line.

Textbook race really. Great coxing, and great determination from the crew, putting in the big pushes when they were needed. Still a bit more sharpness to come too, particularly around the front end, so hopefully FaT M3 will only be getting faster in the run-up to Bumps. (Gonzo)

Following our victory against Caius, I think we were all feeling quite confident going into this race. The rest of the crew assured me that they had had a good race against Clare M2 recently, so hopefully this was going to be a more straightforward race than the last.

This was incorrect. Clare had a pretty solid start, and although we moved up a few seats off the first 10 strokes or so, we didn't quite finish them off like we had done with Caius. However, some more nicely-timed calls from Tony saw that by the time we reached the Railway Bridge, we had opened up some clear water. The row to the line was very nice, with good length and a good push off the bridge. And having been a bit warmer at the start than I had been for the previous race, I didn't blow up this time, which was a nice bonus.

A very well-deserved victory for the crew, despite having to carry me down the course. I look forward to seeing lots of yellow smilies from M3 next week. (Gonzo)

By no means our best race ever. The start took us all somewhat by surprise, and it felt a lot more wobbly than our practises.

We settled into the race fairly quickly, and by the motorway bridge Kings II had bumped Girton II behind us. We'd steadily pulled away from Girton, but it was nice not to have to worry about them - although it might've pushed us to go faster!

We remained a length and a half behind Catz until Grassy, when they started to pull away, and not far up the Reach they bumped Churchill II.

The race didn't feel particularly good, and I feel like we could improve a good deal - which is a good sign, given that the race didn't go particularly disastrously. (Barney)

We started off to a very rocky start, I think the 20 seconds to go push off caught me a little off guard. Was quite a bit of white water coming up either side .

It smoothed out and there was a sweet spot in the middle where we got into a good rythm but then Cats (in front of us) bumped.

There wasn't much chance of the over bump so we just carried on!

I think we'll do a lot better today having done a start already and gotten the most adrenaline influenced start out the way. (B.J. Morris)

We had quite a shaky start but settled into our race by the end of first post reach. Girton 2 had already been bumped by this point, and so there was no pressure from behind. We were keeping up with Cats 2 until grassy, where they managed to gain some distance on us. As they bumped Churchill 2 on the reach we had quite a straight-forward row to the finish.

Perhaps the adrenaline at the start meant that we were a bit frantic and were rating a bit higher than normal, however, with this experience behind us we can certainly do some damage on day 2! (Oskar)

A fairly subdued first bumps race. The start perhaps caught some of us off guard (me included! as we weren't straight)- 20 seconds goes by a lot quicker than you think! With Girton II bumping out behind us early on, we were free to chase Catz II hard. However, they were going for Churchill II which meant that the distance was kept at about 1 and a half lengths up until Grassy. Catz finally got Churchill coming out of Ditton and by then most other boats in the division had bumped out, which left us realistically looking at the row over and this was achieved with ease. (Tony Song)

After a solid start we stuck with churchill till the end of plough reach where they began to pull away with 2 lengths distance between us, and after a crab at the start of the reach, they were looking quite comfortable. Kings by this point weren't worrying us at all. At the railway bridge it wasn't clear whether we were going to make a final push as they had a few lengths on us. Tony, after seeing Churchill wind down before the finish, decided that we could catch them. Our beloved 'break the steak' call was given and we gave it all we got. Churchill were surprised to see us crash into them, saying "you guys are too keen" and "what are you playing at", not realising that they hadn't finished. We had the last laugh, and our first bump! (Oskar)

Quite a strange race. We started off pretty well and held Churchill II at station for quite a long while. Several calls from Tony noting how wide the Churchill line was around the corners was encouraging and by reports from the bank we gained maybe a half length on them through Grassy. Nothing much happened through the Plough Reach though and going around Ditton Churchill II started pulling away. In the Reach we had a crab but it only slowed us down for a bit. No trouble from Kings II chasing us at all. However, we lost more ground on Churchill II and things didn't get better even when we got back up to rate. It felt like it was going to be just another row over. Coming into our finish, there was a bit of a conversation with the bank about whether it was worth it to carry on. Fortunately the decision was made to push through to top finish. Churchill II slowed down well before top finish at which point we pushed into an actually really good wind. Churchill if anything stopped and asked us why we were so keen when we bumped them. We were still quite a way away from what we understood to be top finish. Thanks to Matt and John for checking with the umpires! (Sean)

W1 were happy to break out of general marshalling faff to cheer at the sight of dark blue blades closing in on remarkably slow-moving Barbie pink ones as they were coming into men's top finish. Slightly confused at what was happening, we were nonetheless delighted to see a pink cox arm up in the air. Having actually paid attention to Crew 9 and 10 possibilities, I was sure that it counted as a bump. We looked around for umpires in vain and waited as John and Matt came back with the verdict: a bump made and a bump awarded. Elation! (Yining)

The lesson to take away from today is to never give up (and know where your finish is!) Again, we weren't perfectly straight off the start, but we held Churchill II at station and pulled away from Kings II considerably. However, coming out of Ditton, a crab coupled with a lift from Churchill meant that they managed to lengthen the gap to around 4 lengths by Morley's Holt. I must admit, at this point, I had my doubts about whether we could catch them, but after a brief discussion with the crew and bank party, we decided to chase them all the way to top finish. This turned out to be a great decision as Churchill appeared to be winding it down by the P&E. Spurred on by this, we pushed hard while they simultaneously easied, which meant we had an easy first bump which was met with loud cheers from the girls. (Tony Song)

... cheers from the girls, and then suddenly worry from me that we'd just cheered on a FaT crew bumping a crew that wasn't racing. The complete lack of umpires or marshals made me worry for a while that the division had indeed finished somewhat earlier, but a lengthy delve through the CUCBC website (the information isn't linked to from, for example, the "Lent Bumps" page...) convinced me that Churchill *should* have been racing, just seemed to have forgotten to. (Peter)

This was gutting. We knew Churchill would come at us hard, but we thought we would at least be able to hold them off and we knew we could catch Magdalene. Our start was good, but they were going all out and began to close on us quickly. We had managed to get the gap to Magdalene II down to about a quarter of a length when Churchill bumped us coming into First Post corner. (Tony Song)

A bit disappointing. They came at us hard, and we didn't respond quickly enough. We'd hoped that we would be able to bump Magdalene before they caught us, and we were close.. but not close enough. We were less than half a length off when we were bumped on First Post Corner. They were the faster crew though, and probably deserved to get the bump after our slightly cheeky bump on Wednesday!

Despite the disappointment, we had a very good start, and the row down was one of the best we've had yet. We've definitely progressed over the week, and it's a bit of a shame that we haven't really proved our speed yet. The race as a whole felt pretty good - we just weren't quite fast enough. (Barney)

This was very similar to yesterday's race. Jesus went out hard and we tried to respond by getting the gap to Churchill down to less than a quarter of a length, but we were caught coming into First Post corner. I think we need to learn how to maintain our composure to be able to react to crews gunning for us from the start. (Tony Song)