The Club's Results

A first race that was quite comforting. We did a pretty decent start, gained on them pretty quickly, and kept going. By the railway bridge, we were striding repeatedly, and we crossed the finish line comfortably.   (Zoe W.)

After more than an hour at Chesterton, where we progressively layered more and more kit, plundered Neil's car (some of us ended up huddled like penguins), and watched other crews finishing, we pushed off knowing that we should not underestimate Caius.   (Zoe W.)

A trivial victory, which merits a report from a desire for completeness. (John)

Easy race; Neil had warned us many times before the race that we were to take Darwin as seriously as we would anybody else. I think we did, and our start was speedy, even if it were rocky and rather messy. We quickly gained the length and half or so we needed before we strode it down. And then strode it down again. And again. By the time we got to the line Declan and I felt like we wanted to be rowing at 18; I suspect it was more like 26. (John)

Emma had beaten us by 3s a couple of weeks before at Newnham Short so we didn't need telling not to underestimate them. Our clever pleading with the marshal that actually she wanted us to pull in by the P&E worked and we rekitted, refuelled and went searching for adequate shrubbery (it turns out everything has been cut down until past the Railway Bridge, to my annoyance). Predictably, they forgot about us and we were sufficiently slow pushing off that we succeeded in being rather late to Plough Reach this time as well. And then we were late pushing off from there, leaving Emma to shiver a bit longer. (John)

We were all very excited for this race- the real chance to determine who the fastest M2 on the river was. The first 3/4 did not disappoint; we were side by side the whole way, the gap varying by only one or two seats. They took a marginal gain on their corner, perhaps moving to 1/3 of a length, but the last corner was ours. Neil and Liv drove us on, I heard "Do or die, boys!" from the bank and I knew this was it, our moment- then they hit us.   (Ben)

Fantastic effort from M2, and definitely not the first time Maggie has gotten away with colliding into a FaT crew. In the words of Grenfell-Shaw, "I call conspiracy" (Pembroke Regatta 2012)! (Yining)

3s at Fairbairns, 3s at Newnham in their favour. 1s at Robinson in ours. How much did we want this? We knew this was the race of the day, and so it proved; Caius lost by 2.5 lengths in the final. (John)

Easily the worst rowing we did this term. We took airstrokes and rowed in antiphase during the start, but somehow still moved up on Fitz. We vaguely settled into an extremely messy mid-30s rhythm with water flying in directions I didn't think possible, and I was very pleased I had kept my hood up on the raincoat I was rowing in. We took a length off Fitz very quickly now that we were actually moving somewhat, so we wound it down a bit after 30 strokes or so, and spakked and quiched our way under the railway bridge. Fitz were vanishing by then, so we took it down again, and spakked and quiched even more all the way to the finish line.
(Alex)

Despite having woken up at 6AM, and having arrived at the boathouse a good 20' before M5, we still managed to turn up to marshalling 5' late. Banned from doing a practice start, our first 3 strokes of the race were, perhaps unsurprisingly, the 3 most ineffective strokes I've ever been involved in - we still took several feet per stroke out of the other crew though. We continued to move until we had clear water, at which point we stopped trying, calmed down, and sped up. Some number of strokes later we crossed the line. (mt)

Queens didn't turn up so we messed around on the bank. Rob Shearme led a trip to look at a horse's genitalia, I ate some biscuits, and Patrick flirted with Stroud.
(Alex)

Most of the crew spent the majority of this race looking at a large horse penis. Also, Patrick dropped his jacket in his own piss. (mt)

Our start, and our rowing, was a big improvement on the previous race, but still well below our usual standards. It was pretty fun; my mac kept me warm and dry, and we demolished Christ's before we got to the railway bridge and were able to quiche pretty hard again.
(Alex)

Much of the same. However, I can guarantee you we won by more than 1 and 1/2 lengths given that we were in the middle of arguing with an umpire, having parked at the P&E, as the opposition finally floated past. (mt)

Probably our prettiest rowing of the day. Our start wasn't bad considering it was well above rate 40, and we strided fairly well this time, down to the low 30s I believe. Still significantly below our usual standard, but certainly not a travesty. Again we had clear water after not too many strokes, and were able to slow things down past the railway bridge (though I actually chose to push hard all the way this time). Good job guys.
(Alex)

Rob had convinced us that Clare would be no easy victory. A seamless execution of stroll-past-the-crew-with-my-CUL-all-in-one-rolled-up prompted worried enquiries as to who Clare were racing. I struggle to remember the details of the race other than that once again we moved ahead, got bored, and just sat there. (mt)

This time round Rob had psyched us up by convincing us Maggie weren't terrible, so we were a bit jittery and our start was slightly worse than in the previous rate, with the result that we only took a couple of seats in the first 10 strokes. Nerves meant that there was no stride, and so we rowed at rate 38 the whole way. We decided to compensate for our lack of finesse during this race by beasting it, so we all pulled our hardest for the first time this day. The result was a messy, but fast, row, and Maggie, although holding on admirably compared to the other crews we faced, were down by a length and a half by the railway bridge. We continued to beast it all the way to the finish line, with Maggie gradually fading away. Thornton and I occasionally screamed for people to finish off their strokes and not to shorten up, and I occasionally just screamed inarticulately. Much fun.

Also Tom and I took the bold decision to row just in our all-in-ones, so I was without my trusty mac for the first time this day. On the plus side we looked good; on the downside, "tsunami" Shahid wetted us more thoroughly than I have ever been wetted in my entire rowing career. I couldn't have been much wetter if I had swum the course. Ever one step ahead, I had brought a towel, which probably staved off hypothermia on the row home.

If we can take our finesse from Robinson Head, and combine it with pushing hard like we did in this race, we will demolish everything in our path in bumps.
(Alex)

Now for the real test. A firm believer in Rule #3, I distributed my dry CUL kit and we went for a quick "keep-warm jog". LMBC were, as expected, more of a challenge than any other race that day; they lasted a good 20 strokes more than any other crew before they disappeared into our wash. All in all a good day, although I'm never doing a regatta on 4 hours sleep ever, ever again! Not even Peterborough. Also the barman in Spoons tried to steal my pot. (mt)

Watching from the bank, it was a pleasure to see M5 finally racing this term. As a scratch crew, it was the effort and commitment which they showed that was most pleasing to see. Neil called watching them the highlight of his day too (admittedly we were also the first race of the day, but who's counting).   (A. Strange)