St Catharine's College Boat Club

Bumped Churchill M2

After a good term of solid training and some decent performances in races under our belts, we felt well prepared for the first day of bumps. The row down was good, with a couple of strong practice starts to get the blood flowing.

Upon reaching our station the nerves started to kick in; unsurprising given that this was the first bumps for eight of us. The start wasn't our best, but despite this we by no means lost ground on our opponents. The rowing was tense to start with, but quickly we gained nearly half a length on Churchill M2, whilst leaving FAT M3 a long way behind. Great cornering from Maria led us around Grassy into Plough Reach.

Just as we began to tire and question ourselves, the first whistle came, and with it a huge morale boost. Rapidly the rowing became much more relaxed and we began to feel like the M2 that managed to reach the Semi-Finals of Pembroke Regatta. At this point the hard work we've put into our ergs all term began to pay off, as it became clear that we had the edge on Churchill in terms of fitness. Thanks to a strong power ten the two whistles came, soon to be followed by three more.

An (un)fortunately timed crab from Churchill meant that we landed on them whilst they were more or less stationary, roughly halfway up the reach. This led to a bit of an entanglement with their cox, but fortunately noone was seriously hurt.

The bump today was well fought and well deserved, showing that the hard training we've put in this term has paid off. Bring on tomorrow, and Magdalene M2!