The Club's Results

A crab (mine, of course, it's not a crew with me in it if there isn't some ridiculous bladework happening) on Draw 2 left us about three seats down within the first two strokes. Oops.

We eventually recovered, and caught '99s and Auriol Kensington. We were fortunately first over the line shortly thereafter, enabling us to skip straight to the final.

All in all, not a bad row, but perhaps another piece of evidence that perhaps IV+ scratch crews typically should try to have an outing before racing to prevent comedy rowing. (Alexa)

Having gotten a random outing along the Nene, some practice starts, some tapping, and some high-rate roll-ups in between rounds, we were certainly in a better place than the previous race.

A nice, calm, 500m later, with a few pushes and some nice grinding down of elderly women, we were quite pleasantly surprised that we could claim some pots, if only bow pair managed to produce some passport-sized photos.

Despite having earlier run into town for the now traditional mid-regatta coffee break*, Alex and I had neglected to consider that in the unlikely event that we were to win, locating a passport photo machine prior to 5pm on a Sunday evening might be a good idea.
Immediately after the race, we hopped out of the boat, leaving the boys to deal with derigging while we chased down some photographs. After a dead end at ASDA and some quick thinking, we found ourselves at the Peterborough Railway Station (which has been renovated quite nicely since the last time I visited, I might add) imposing ourselves on the very lovely staff. Fortunately for us, we found a passport photo machine and returned to the regatta site just in time to collect pots and points!

*Poor Alex also was rear-ended during this ill-fated coffee trip. She's a trooper. (Alexa)

With the top two finishers going to the final, when only two crews turned up to the start, we suggested a backing down race, but Sons of the Thames weren't keen. We hammered our way down the course with some effectiveness, with me finding it much harder than I expected to stay in lane, sticking Tim on the buoys a couple of times. (Peter)

The lengthy gap between Attention and Go left us pointing substantially at the warm-up lane, but I coped better with staying in lane than in the heat. The rowing was fairly neat, but I don't think we had the strength or experience to live with the pace of the crews around us. (Peter)