The Club's Results

The overall time does not accurately depict what happened here. For reference, most crews were about 70s slower on the return leg. 

Leg 2: 9:09.3 (ranking first)

Oh.

OH.

So now you're wondering what the fuck happened there. Well I'll tell you. It wasn't just the fact I was totally gone after the W1 race and rowed like I didn't know how to, well, row. It's something to do with Hazel's first ever overhead crab, Connor being too sportsmanlike and Clare M3. Hazel crabs at the railings, can't recover it. So we stop and Ada helps her get her blade back. In the mean time, Clare M3 catch up to us and start screaming at us to concede the line (we already had, babes). We are overtaken and restart. 

By Ditton corner we have caught back up to the trailing blades octopus (is it still an octopus if all 8 legs are never in the water?) that was seemingly without a rudder- although to be fair the cox probably had whiplash by this point. They are told to concede the line. They do not.

The same story can be repeated down plough reach, grassy corner, round first post corner and down first post reach. We keep having to wind it down as Connor got increasingly more frustrated (me too Connor, me too) by the out-of-control Clare crew that, despite having the wisdom of most of their M1 on the bank decide that they would rather gamble on the fact we won't hit them than let us go past. 

I think that race can best be described as 5x350m with several glides- including one over the finish line.

The return leg was a fantastic recovery and a show of mentality. Was it a bit rushy? Maybe. Generally it was together, committed and there was a lot going into the water with a lot more to come. The fact that the above chaos did not really damage the will of the crew (and I am not even going to talk about the marshalling shitshow) gives me confidence for bumps. Unfortunately they would have to do something quite spectacular to bump a Clare boat.

A klaxon a day keeps the doctor away (or two as M2 later found out.)

From umpiring Magdalene two boats behind, FaT gained fast. They had nearly bumped Newnham by the motorway bridge. Only by deciding to spear into a clearing Catz boat did they make a brief escape by getting the division checkmated.

In the rerow much the same happened and they got Newnham.

We went out of the blocks hard, with Churchill gaining on us slightly.

We got a whistle on Newnham, and Churchill got one on us - I'm not sure which way around.

Churchill then dropped back and we closed to 2 and then 3 whistles on Newnham

At this point half the river started yelling hold it up, so we did

It turned out that Catz and ARU had managed to entangle their boats into a XVI++ and block the river in the process, thus stopping our race at around 6ft from Newnham's stern

After what felt like forever but was probably 2 minutes, our glorious captain arrived in a CUCBC hi-viz and told us to go back for a rerow. As an aside, it was mildly amusing watching Bomber go to students to find things out, because usually he has all the answers!

For the rerow we did exactly the same thing again, just a bit colder
Churchill gained a bit and awarded themselves a whistle, we closed on Newnham and got 3 whistles in about the same place as before. We bumped them about 100y after the bridge with Churchill about 2 lengths back from us.

Our clearing was a bit scrappy, but Churchill easily got round us on their way to row over. Unfortunately for them there was no crew to chase. Which was unfortunate for me, because I'd predicted them double overbumping in Bumpit!

Tomorrow, we hope to thank ARU for this opportunity. Or more accurately, our bow ball does. Up close and personal.

A bump is a bump is a bump.

A bump was awarded.

In an unconnected incident a length further up, Catz also caught a boatstopping crab and ended up parked, which confused everyone thinking that ARU might have bumped Catz before we got them.

Having held it up, we then briefly tried to wind it up again before holding it up a second time
We pulled into the bank with only about 1/3 of the boat being confident that we'd bumped, and the rest of the boat very confused.
Having unconfused ourselves we rowed home with what we think was some of our best rowing of term, despite some hail.

We knew today was going to be a hard race, because Lucy were quick.
We knew that we were quick enough to bump them over the whole course, but we also knew that Lucy were quick enough to bump Emma.

Our plan was an all-or-nothing 500m sprint to first post corner, and to hope that Emma could hold off Lucy for long enough.

They could.

Just.

Far closer than any of us really wanted, but we got the bump.

High point of the day was Connor calling "Rate 39, Up 2" which is a bold call for the 3rd division, although ultimately successful!