The Club's Results

In-between the races, Bomber lengthened the gearing. We had been having a whale of a time watching div 3 (including the fabulous M2 and W1), calling out "Yeah [wrong college]!" at any other Cambridge crew, and seeing him adjusting the blades when we arrived back was rather a nasty shock.  (Thomas Frith)

M1 achieved the rare feat of entering early enough to be in Bomber’s favourite division: Div 2. This unfortunately necessitated the hiring of a car to get there on time. (Thomas Frith)

Race day was to be a chaotic day.  The first signs of chaos came the day before as both Ronnie and Iwo had tested positive for covid and it had been decided they couldn’t race, after some asking around Bahdan with no convincing and Máté with assurances that no one else could do it agreed to sub. (Thank you both, you saved our day).  Our crew pasta was one of the best I’d had. Igor, Andrew and Andrey headed to Mainsburys to gather ingredients while Luke had agreed to host. Igor was cooking the pasta despite never cooking for himself and thinking water half way up the pasta was a good way to cook it. Andrey made delicious spiced chicken. The whole crew had a part to play in the preparations. We had great fun that night talking about everything from the boat club itself to Travisty being censored. On the way home we surmounted castle mound and posed for photos in a battle stance with Andrey poised to kill with a frying pan. We went home ready to race at our best the next day.  The day started off peacefully as we arrived at Great Gate at quarter to eight before heading to the bus stop Bedford-bound.  Kian perceptive as ever noted that two of the crew had arrived from different directions than they had gone off in in the night before. Despite the bus being ten minutes late we arrived around ten o’clock and made our way to the trailer. We put the boats together just as M1 were returning from their div happy at a race well done. We pushed off and rowed to the start line and after some ropey parking spun and started to race. We were mostly in time and no one crabbed and we finished with a time of 5:41. We returned the boat and headed off for a crew maccies with W1. Who were only 16 seconds slower than us in the first race so we resolved to gain further on them in the second.  We decided the Flash headbands that came with our food would give us free speed however Bomber told us we would be demoted to M4 and have to use Richard Church if we raced in them so we reluctantly took them off. Despite being tired and Oli boaking just before spinning, we were ready to do it all again. Andrew spotted a fishing line caught on a tree and may have interfered with Kian’s parking to tap himself closer to it and retrieve it to stop any fish potentially choking on it.  We raced again more technically than the first time and managed to shave off two more seconds over the course, a fact we were very pleased with. As W1 had gotten two seconds slower the second time, we had gained four seconds on them and achieved our goal.  Then the chaos began. We took apart 804 and QE1 and loaded them onto the trailer unknowingly forgetting six blades. As Andrew and Zara returned to collect their bags James informed them they needed to sprint for the bus as it was leaving in five minutes. They set off and ran into three girls from Fitz who recognised them and told them they had our blades as we had forgotten them. As we sprinted towards the bus we phoned everyone in our contacts to tell them this until Emma finally picked up, got a hold of Bomber and rescued our blades. After 10 minutes of sprinting we just missed the bus and phoned Kian to delay it at the next stop which unfortunately we were also unable to make it after another mad dash for about eight minutes. We headed to spoons for a quick pint and started to write our race reports while some of M1 were gurning over why the rest of the club ought to be paying for their car.  We made the next bus an hour later and returned to Cambridge after the woman’s side and some of M2 had already reconstructed our boats. A good thing as we had an outing the next morning. The day had brought M2 together more as a crew and also had us bond more with W1 as we spent most of the day with them. 
(Andrew Farquharson)

Having gotten the worst out of our system the day before in an outing that was shorter than the time it took us to dismantle our boat, Bedford showed us that we are not the crew that paddled Newnham Head last week. We also didn't do a crew pasta. Still not sure why. I'm going to apologise now for having inevitably forgotten things. Given this is being written in a Wetherspoons in Bedford having missed the bus, I should probably keep my emotions out of this report. Waking up and meeting for 07:45 was just a throwback to morning outings, with the added joys of an hour and a half on a bus that was late- because of course it's English public transport under discussion here. There was absolutely no bitterness about M1 having a car and wanting us to share in the cost of it. Some amusement was had as it was pointed out that [redacted] x2 had gone to [other redacted]x2s rooms the night before and none of said people arrived from the expected direction. There was tiredness and excitement buzzing around the crew- for three of us it was our first off-Cam race. We knew we were better than last week with some really promising signs in outings and ergs this past week. The conditions were chilly in Bedford but not overly so, and other than a bit of mud it was all dry. Seeing M1 after their first race as we were just arriving reminded us that we too would soon be on the water. Putting the boats back together was a new experience for me, but it all went smoothly and we had QE1 ready to race in good time. Paddling to the start was positive, with bursts being conducted with lots of spirit and commitment, not to mention power. We were not marshalled long before our first race at 12:00 began, where we started strong and kept our splits between 1:53 and 1:57 as we settled into a sustainable rhythm at about rate 34. Hearing the sound of one catch as we went under tunnel bridges was really quite something, with the sound echoing off the walls. Unfortunately towards the end fatigue impacted our timing, reminding us that we still have things to work on. We committed and gave our all to that first race, finishing in 5:57 over about 1600m, meaning we improved by around 10 splits from last week. More amusingly, M2 were only 16 seconds faster than us. Unfortunately the division 4 results came in and we realised that Queens were 2 seconds faster than us, giving us new resolve for our next race. The between races trip to Maccies kept our spirits up as we got hot food/drinks and prepared to race once more at 15:00. I appreciated the caffeine. It was colder as we boated, and my splash jacket certainly stayed on after the amount of water than came from the 2 and 3 seats in the first race. Oddly enough, this race was far less splashy; I'll credit it to technique improvements. The splits were roughly the same although the fatigue level post-race was naturally much higher. We finished in 5:59, a good result given how much we had committed to the first race. More excitingly, we had the same time as Queens, who will be chasing us in bumps in just over three weeks time. Still, we cannot forget that they were overall faster than us and we need to continue to 'press down the legs'. We were the only FaT crew to be slower on our second race, suggesting we were the only crew to commit in the first one. Deboating and dismantling QE1 are a bit of a blur, fresh and dry clothing was very much welcomed and the focus was on just getting home. Unfortunately for me, on the way to the bus stop we were stopped by some women from Fitz, telling us we had left six blades and trying to communicate this to the people getting the trailer back was a nightmare. Being the only member of W1 not in the trailer, and therefore unable to collect blades, all I could do was hope someone picked up their phone. Thankfully they did. The reason I said unfortunately is because the bus stop that (most of) M2 were going to was not communicated, resulting in two of us missing the bus despite running across Bedford in 3-4 layers with bags of kit for over fifteen minutes. That's why I'm in Wetherspoons. Cider is not a replacement for being home an hour earlier, and running at that intensity after racing twice is not a vibe. When I said I wanted to get back into running, this is not what I meant. All in all, it was a good day. For a first off-Cam experience it could have been terrible but it wasn't. With twenty days until our next race, I for one am optimistic given the improvements we've made since last weekend. (Zara Bek)