First and Third Trinity Boat Club
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The Club's Results

Molesey Amateur Regatta, Summer 2014

Coxless pairs (IM2 2-)

Coxless pairs
in Freya
bow Peter Ford str Jonathan Williams
Final
Lost by getting lost
"First and Third, return to the course". I don't think this was actually called by the umpire, but it should have been. We were awarded a bye to the final, so took advantage of the opportunity to watch our opponents race their semifinal an hour or two before. They didn't look particularly inspiring, but I later concluded this was probably because they were so far ahead that they were trying to paddle at 20, and struggling to do low rate in the chop. It turned out the practise would definitely have been useful for us. The only crew entered which we had managed to do any outings in was the IM1 4-, which failed to get any opposition, so a random pair of Jon and I was proposed as an alternative. We'd managed to get an outing in on Friday afternoon, and had discovered we naturally fitted together surprisingly well, so had reasonably high hopes as we lined up for the final. Our opposition kindly warned us that they had found it tricky not to drift wide on the bowside corner which made up the first 300m of the race, so I lined up on the start pointing at the apex of the corner. Unfortunately, racing on either the Cam or buoyed straight courses had left me unused to needing to look round in races. I aimed for the apex of the corner, and it seems that's where we went, clipping the buoy with Jon's blade at around a minute in. At that point we were around a length up, thanks in part to a minor shipwreck by Kingston, but clipping the buoy and restarting dropped us to a couple of seats behind. We struggled on a little behind but were starting to run out of steam and dropped back to clear water down, at which point our increased efforts made directional stability less and less secure; I think I left the course a couple of times and clipped buoys with Jon's blade a few more times. By the end we were a long way down, and I feel we would have lost even with perfect steering, but it was frustrating to be proved quite so ineffectual at something I've previously managed to do quite well. (Peter)

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