The Club's Results

We had a lot of fun marshaling for this - or at least I did. I think that I found my jokes funnier than anybody else.... After sitting in queues most of the way down to the start, about half an hour late, we were racing. A fairly good start, hitting about 36 off the wind and settling down to a solid 33 or so, and moving through the corners we were moving on the crew in front. We were about a length down through Ditton, and we slowly moved on them up the Reach. We were about half a length up and pushing hard off them just past the Railway Bridge when there was a slight "incident" between the boats. Once I got back on my seat and recovered my blade we started moving again, but never really got back into our rhythm - I don't think it helped that my toes were in the heel cups and my heels were in the footwell. Thankfully there were only 500m or so left, and we spacked across to the finish. I'm pretty happy with the result - being 25s behind the fastest college crew, in a scratch 8 and given the circumstances, I think isn't the worst place to be. (Barney)

This was a highly enjoyable race with a slightly unfortunate end. Having moved well of the start and through the corners we gained on the crew in front, starting to pass them as we approached the railway bridge. With neither boat willing to cede the racing line and the other crew without space to maneuver, several blades clashed before Barney caught the slowest crab imaginable as his oar was slowly swallowed up under the other crew's bow. Our restart lacked the same intensity as the previous 2k, but shouldn't overshadow what a good race and warm-up we had.
(A. Strange)

This was fun, though I was definitely not smiling during the race, despite supposed "evidence" to the contrary. (mt)