The Club's Results

Despite a panicky practice start, I was feeling pretty buzzed as we lined up on the start line. We were bigger than Caius, and we were rowing fairly well. Having done a couple of extra practice starts as we moved up the Reach, I was fairly happy that blades would be in the water for the first stroke.

I think we were probably faster than Caius. Certainly, we were 2 seats up when Lydia caught the first of her overhead crabs, about 10 strokes in. Sadly, these things happen, and we lost about 5/4 lengths recovering the situation. We did move back to a length down, and were moving through Caius, but Lydia caught another boat-stopper, and we crashed into the towpath bank. At this point, the race was over.

However, to the girls' credit, at no point did the power or rate drop off, even when they were 5 or 6 lengths down, and they gave a good account of themselves. I was proud to see that. With a lack of race experience, we can always expect mistakes to happen. I think the crew dealt with the issues that arose as well as they could, which is very pleasing.

On the face of it, this wasn't an ideal result going into Fairbairns, but perhaps there is a silver lining. We have at least had our shocking race of term. Next time when we line up, we are going to remain calm and in control, and we will try and beat Caius. I believe putting this result right should be the primary objective of the crew coming into Fairbairns, and hopefully we will use every stroke we take from now on to get closer to that goal. Come the dinner, I'll drink to that. (Sam)

Our first round was against Jesus' NM2. After a slight delay due to their lack of bow ball we lined up, a process which took suprisingly long as Jesus kept, inadvertently I'm sure, drifting forward.

The boats were pretty even for the first hundred feet or so before we started pulling ahead. Despite getting rather close to their side of the river, no clashes occurred as we were almost a whole length ahead, although the marshals were getting irate.

As the finish line approached, Jesus managed to find new strength and they accelerated forward at an alarming rate. Fortunately, it was a case of too little too late although they did cut the distance between us significantly.

It was a great race and celebrations certainly weren't muted. (A.M. O'Neill)

Gave NM2 a lie in on Saturday morning. Thanks Pembroke! (Barney)

Gutting.

It was a good race, with both crews holding level off the start. We slowly started to move away after a couple of hundred metres, but they hung on to us. We had a big push out of the railway bridge, with Felix deciding that a power ten wasn't enough and calling his own super power ten, and pulled out half a length.

With about 15 strokes to go, I thought they had it in the bag. Then a pretty massive crab appeared, and Maggie came back... and just about edged it over the line. Definitely less than a canvas - neither us nor Maggie knew who'd won it until we asked the marshals.

A very promising race, with a disappointing end. However, it's looking very promising for Fairbairns - I think that NM2 have a good shot at being the fastest NM2 on the river. (Barney)

Had a nice paddle down on Friday afternoon to find that we didn't have any opponents. We took the opportunity to do a race piece, which was looking pretty nice - until we had to stop for Homerton NW2, who decided to point their boat into the bank. (Barney)

A very good race. Magdalene started to pull away slowly throughout the race, but I was fairly confident that we could come back. They were very messy, and the noises coming from their 6-man suggested that they were gunning it off the start and hoping to hang on. We were rowing pretty neatly, and just before the railway bridge we started to move on them. We went from over a length down to under half a length quickly, and then their 2-man (I think) caught an overhead crab. This signaled the end of their race, with NM3 pulling away to win.

Very proud of how they did - they beat an NM2 despite being over a length down, and never gave up. (Barney)

Sadly, 3 people couldn't make their quarter final race. We had subs to find for the quarter final race already, and so there was no way that they could carry on. I was disappointed about that.

NM3: Undefeated (Barney)