The Club's Results

The optimal number of bowsiders to put in the coxless is in fact four. (mt)

A slightly disappointing row where we failed to find the speed we had found the weekend before. We started reasonably cleanly, but settled onto a rushed and not particularly effective rhythm. We were a second or two down coming past the Plough, however our attempts to raise boat-speed resulted in more rush and less speed, resulting in Catz gaining significantly on the reach. We should be going plenty faster by Lents. (Matthew)

With the only member of the crew having significant bowside experience sitting in the coxing seat, initial outings were always going to be a little rocky. Once a compromise had begun to emerge between US and FaT rowing styles, things started to go a little more smoothly, and in our final practise outing the crew managed some promising bursts. In the race, however, the smooth effective rowing from the outing seemed hard to rediscover, and we came through the first timing point (at 1km) a length or so down. The crew stayed calm, and with a tight Ditton we reached the final 500m with perhaps a half-length lead. Lifts in rating towards the finish seemed to be successful at maintaining this lead, but the question when we crossed the line was: had we done enough to achieve the 1 second minimum winning margin? The answer proved to be yes, and we had avoided the dreaded rerow... (Peter)

From the bank, it looked like the first half of the race was cleaner and more effective than yesterday's rowing, and this tailed off into quite a scrappy reach. However, our on-the-day performance turned out not to be hugely relevant to the result; it looked like we closed on Caius in the first 500m (always hard to tell from the bank) but in spite of a much improved Grassy, Caius steadily pulled away from the Gut onwards and were well clear by the Reach (Peter)

Definitely not as good as during the 4x3 minute pieces on the weekend, but the intent to row fast and together was there, and first post reach felt nice. Deteriorated after Grassy and we never really picked it up properly after then (just lost balance and send). We realised after the race that clean finishes and proper rock-overs might actually help sit the boat, and managed to apply that change on Friday. (Neil I.)

That was a great race; we started extremely relaxed and kept the timing and rate throughout the whole piece. The rating felt ridiculously low, but this was just due to the extra smoothness. The boat was nicely sat most of the time, with only a few bad moments that did not take away from the overall feeling of togetherness. I for one finished the race not realising that my legs were hurting until after we crossed the finish line. Definitely my favourite bit of rowing so far this term. It's always difficult to tell distances during Uni IVs, but I felt that being in front gave a good incentive to keep the pressure high and constant, and we opened up a nice margin towards the end. (Neil I.)

After the great race against Jesus, which put us, to our slight surprise, into the final of our event, we determined to go out and win this category and demonstrate our newly found speed. This determination showed in the paddle down, which was equally good and even more relaxed than the piece. We parked and waited (quite a long time) for Maggie W1 to appear for their final against Downing - was this an attempt at intimidation? (Neil I.)

Pretty good race. After our 'interesting' practice starts, the real one went quite well, despite just a solitary whistle indicating we had to start rowing. A smooth stride led to a strong rhythm which was held throughout the race. Focusing on the hips led to some excellent pushes and the boat speed was nice. Sadly we were not able to overcome the 2nd IV, but it was definitely worth racing. (Ben)