First and Third Trinity Boat Club
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The Club's Results

Cardinal's Regatta, May Term 2015

Fruit and Veg (8+)

Coxed by: Liv Godwin

1st round
Beat Downham easily
Dressed as fruits and vegetables, the highlights of these being a broccoli with a green afro and a bunch of grapes using balloons, we were an interesting sight. As our first race in a double bucket rigged WinTech, we had a somewhat interesting time. The practice we had as a crew paddling down to the start didn't seem to help with the rhythm - in fact, the boat felt almost as heavy as the tub pair I had rowed earlier in the day. Despite this, it turns out that if you take more strokes than the other crew then you tend to go faster until they give up. We were able to stride once ahead and passed the finish at a leisurely but rocky 26/28. (Imogen)
The WinTech is the favourite boat of few people, and I was nervous when Matt suggested we take it for our races. However, I got over this apprehension with the desire to put as many buckets in the boat as we could (sadly limiting ourselves to the two sensible ones; having zero net moment on our boat being apparently considered a Good Thing), and by pinning to my shirt as many balloons as possible (and to the short lived hat, which ended up swept away by the wind on about stroke 4 of the paddle up). These tended to get in the way both of the finish and of simply coming up the slide as a balloon would get stuck between my body and legs; possibly this was a ploy to stop me lunging at the catch.

To add a note of lightness to Imogen's painting of gloominess in rowing form, the rowing and racing was the best sat I can remember the boat being; this came as a complete shock.

Post marshalling, we did a little practice start, during which we hit about 42 despite having seat/costume interaction malfunctions. I thought this boded well, and so it did. Clamming up immediately before the start so we could fit as many strokes as possible in the short race we eyed up our opposition. Pretty much everyone in our boat had been rowing that morning as part of genuine training and we had spied the Downham boat out there cheating in a despicable fashion. They looked kind of big so we argued for as much of a head start as we could, got half a length thanks to Julia's excellent bribes, and then paddled off down the course at a sedate 40 which gradually slipped.

A good healthy 500m later and we finally pushed across the line about half a length in front; thank you corruption.
(John)
Quarter finals
Beat Fitz Sci Fi
After the first race, we tried to have more rhythm and row together - all the better to 'squash' the opposition. The Fitz crew had 6 men in it so we got a measly half length head start and continued with our plan of taking lots of strokes slightly badly instead of fewer strokes slightly badly. This worked again, as we won. (Imogen)
We had the opportunity to observe and recoil from the costumes of the other FaT crew, who had spectacularly taken to their theme. Barney's corset and thong being a particular highlight, if that's the word I'm after... Hopefully there are some photos knocking around somewhere.

Race-wise, the plan was the same as before: follow Matt as we crank the rate until we literally can't keep up any more. This was extremely effective as we took a length or so off the other crew and then had the opportunity to practise 'striding'. Lol. We did take the rate down and rowed through the line comfortably ahead (my legs decidedly in favour of not having to row at 100% effort for such a long way). Fordy did comment that the bucket rigging helped togetherness remarkably; maybe we should all follow Jesus.
(John)
Semi finals
Lost to Fitz Scientists by 1 seat
As the first two races had been moderately easy we were hopeful for the next race. However at the start line the opposing crew seemed to have rather a lot of men in it. 7 male rowers in fact. Despite this we were given no head start so hammered it down the course as fast as possible. This was probably our best race of the day, but the unfairness (in my op-onion) of the start mean that we were 'beet'. We were a bit 'cress'-fallen, but the marshals realised they had been unfair so awarded us the best costume prize instead. (Imogen)
I can't compete with the puns.

Rowing up to the start line again we noticed a slight disparity in the composition of our crews; this afforded us no advantage whatsoever on the start and we went into it with the all guns blazing attitude which by all rights should have worked.

As I recall, by this point we'd gotten the hang of our start sequence designed to win a 300m race. Only this time the race lasted 500m. Some bad strokes from the other crew took the edge off their speed and we clawed back a foot or two. Sadly, it was to no avail, and we crossed the finish line slightly behind in what was a decent race. We felt vindicated when our bank party later told us they hard the finish marshal telling the start that that race was possibly on the unfair side, and won the best costume prize to boot. But it was annoying not have had the third of a length head start we'd have needed to clinch the win, and not to have the opportunity to race the other FaT boat and prove that big ergs will only get you so far; you need to row well. Like we were. Right?
(John)

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