First and Third Trinity Boat Club
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The Club's Results

Cambridge Winter Head, Mich Term 2022

1st women's novice VIII (Student Beginner VIIIs)

Coxed by: James Quayle

5th in Category (Westminster, Churchill, UEA, KCL)
Time: 12:50.4

It’s a good thing that NW1 is generally a high spirited crew seeing as our time spent in the boat prior to racing was nearly two hours. The extra time turned out to be a bonus as the crew had to relearn how to row on our way to the starting line, in the words of our coach ‘ the crew that rowed downstream wouldn't have had much fun racing at all’ but the good news is that the crew who raced upstream had a lot of fun. 


Our morning started strong with us learning to pick up the correct blade after pushing off and discovering that bow and stroke did not know which way round ‘1’ and ‘8’ are in a boat. Crisis averted and we did manage to push off in the end, with M2 not particularly pleased that they had to hold their boat above their heads as we got the correct blades. Unfortunately it did not turn out to be our ‘one mistake’ as it was so helpfully put. 


It was discovered on the way to the start that we did not know how to start a race, and there was no prospect of any real practice, but surprisingly enough we started (mostly) in time. This was after we had to spin and nearly crashed into the bank, resulting in us having to be pushed off to prevent us from crashing into the bank… dragging our coach into the Cam in the process. Somehow we made it to our position where we spent a considerable amount of time observing the sheer amount of detritus in the river as well as some wildlife, whilst trying not to drift too far. It kept our spirits up and we discovered that, as a crew, we have the ability to be disconcertingly cheerful at all times.


After all of this, and probably some things that I have blanked from my memory, we set off and were surprisingly in time and during the actual race, few mistakes were made. Turns out it is possible to get said mistakes out of your system and leave them behind the starting line. The fact we only had one previous outing as a full crew made our ability to put it together more impressive- that is if you ignore the rating which was a solid rate 20. Great on a Tuesday morning as it means you are actually moving rather than stuck in traffic, but less than ideal during a race. Still, lessons learnt and next time the boat is almost guaranteed to go faster as ‘race pace’ has entered our vocabulary.


(Philippa)

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