First and Third Trinity Boat Club
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The Club's Results

Fairbairn Cup 2014

BPBC 3rd men's VIII (Invitation VIIIs)

Coxed by: John Grenfell-Shaw


Time: 17:02.8
So about 3 minutes before BP1 pushed off it was noticed that they couldn't find a working cox box. In some anticipation of this eventuality I may have carefully tried to hang onto the one I'd used for M4's race in the previous division, however, the eagle eyes and bright minds of BP1 saw through this plot and claimed a mixture of seniority by boat, by position in the boatclub and by the number of people in that crew who had coached me, in order to confiscate it. We put the Wintec on the water, the favourite boat of nobody at all, and tried desperately to make any of the other cox boxes work (which one did, for a glorious 2 seconds). It was decided that our start was 'do a start' and that nobody would be listening to me anyway.

So, we did a start, rowed a bit and people promptly realised why BP1 and BP2 had elected for the Jany's. To start with we moved along at a fair lick and a mixture of legs and bridge pushes got us to Chesterton where stroke caught a crab which knocked the front end of the backstay off the boat and put a bend in it. Nobody realised this until the finish line so after I had panicked, put the rudder on hard, waited for stroke to get back on his seat and narrowly missed the barges around Chesterton (again) we carried on business as usual, sending the boat behind us away (having asked to go in front of them on the basis that they looked quite slow we felt it would embarrassing to get caught).

After spinning in front of a load of boats who were patiently queuing (as is, apparently, normal) we started our very slow queue home. Highlights included trying to do square blades all 8 roll ups (I think), to the expectation and amusement of the crew behind us.
(John)
A consistent (-ly poor) and unspectacular row, in the best tradition of BPBC M3 crews. Wintech's David Jones may be a tricky beast, but at least it's not Peter Brandt. Shame about the crabbage, without which we'd at least have beaten all the women's crews. (Matt)

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