The Club's Results
Mich Term 2014
2nd women's novice VIII
Clare Novice Regatta (Plate)
Quarter finals
Bye
Bye
This was among the easier races of the day. We kept our eyes in the boat and didn't even glance at the opposition. A decent start gave us a start's distance worth of lead, which was followed by a reasonable surge onto race rate. After a handful of strokes it became clear our opposition weren't going to catch us so we continually surged until towards the end we even introduced some pausing as a technical focus, demonstrating how far ahead we were by that stage.
Semi finals
Beat Christ's
Beat Christ's
Our first real race. A hurried but generally decent start (both for power and technique) put me on Christ's 3 girl (along with a handful of blade clashes which were probably shared responsibility - sorry...), and continued energetic and sharp rowing put me past their bows, where we stayed for the rest of the race. The effort stayed in the boat for the duration of the race, but as people got tired the technical aspect begin to depart and the boat speed came off slightly. We held it together enough that we continued to push off Christ's all the way to the finish line, demonstrating the work and focus we've tried to keep this term.
Our thanks to Olivia and Merodie for subbing in today!
Final
Lost to Jesus
Lost to Jesus
In my opinion we had one of our best starts of the day, putting us broadly level with Jesus (perhaps a seat or two down), followed by some excellent technical rowing at high rate. Sadly we caught an overhead crab shortly afterwards, giving Jesus a length or so of clear water but after we got the blades back in everyone in the crew showed what they were made of and promptly started pushing enough to claw back a bit of distance on Jesus. Sadly it wasn't quite enough and Jesus did a good job of responding to our push, ending with clear water. Despite that, it was a very brave race and I was impressed by the determination in the boat. Very encouraging for Fairbairns on Thursday!
Novice Fairbairn Cup (2nd division)
Time: 12:52.7
We chatted beforehand and made sure everyone was warmed up and as ready as possible - there were quite a few understandable nerves, especially seeing as NW1 had poached our stroke girl. Luckily, when we got into the boat and started racing, everyone performed admirably. Christi did an excellent job keeping the rate at about 29 for the duration of the race, and after a choppy first 30 strokes or so everyone got into the rhythm she was setting - even more impressive given we had two subs in the boat, due to illness and injury (well done to you guys for fitting in so successfully)! After getting into rhythm we had a successful race with a well moving boat and plenty of dedication. We passed a Murray Edwards crew which seemed to have done a good job of writing off their bows just before the White Bridge and they enthusiastically cheered us on (thanks Murray Edwards!). Passing Chesterton, I took the corner from a little bit too central and had to ask for some more strokeside pressure which got us round successfully. As we reached the P&E our bank party, already large with members of the club who'd coached us that term or were otherwise excited by what we could do, essentially doubled in size. Continuing to row towards the railway bridge our bank party swelled even further as the whole of NW1 ran down to cheer us on - we must have had well over 20 people there; it was absolutely amazing. Buoyed up by this amazing level of support and noise from the bank we pushed off the bridge and had a strong row through to the finish line.
A weak throw from the bank followed by some backing it down gave the tired crew some well-deserved minstrels (thank you Matt G!) before some cheeky spinning put us in a good position for the row home. This was the first time the cox box stopped working.
A shout out to Lea who managed the race on the wrong side with a very painful wrist, a fantastic effort from everyone, and the highest one of our second novice women's VIIIs has come for over ten years!
Links
Full 2nd women's novice VIII results archive
