St Catharine's College Boat Club

Rowed Over

It would be lying to say that blades weren't in the back of our minds as we arrived at the boathouse on the last day. In fact. it would probably be more accurate to say that they were at the front of our minds, thanks to Dr Scales parading around with the flag like a peacock with his tailfeathers. Nonetheless we knew that the task ahead of us was a tough one, and we knew that we had to give it our all, physically and mentally.

Building on Friday's strong performance, again focus was the key on the row down and we didn't let Selwyn M2 intimidate us as the tailgated us down - by Saturday we knew that although we weren't the most powerful crew in the division, we were probably the fittest.

Again, the start wasn't ideal and we went off at quite an angle. Maria and strokeside were quick to correct this, but it did mean that Trinity Hall M2 made ground on us from behind off the start. We soon pushed them off however, and they posed little threat throughout the race. Ahead of us, Selwyn M2 were aware that they'd have to go off hard in order to bump Clare M2 before we bumped them, and they did, meaning that we were unable to make any impression on the distance between us. Thanks to Hughes Hall bumping out on the inside of Grassy, we had to take a wide line on the corner. A heroic hand-brake turn from Maria was the only thing that kept us from making an early exit, escaping with just a clipped blade on the outside of the corner.

Clare M2's luck had been causing chaos in the division all week, and towards the end of Plough Reach it ran out. Selwyn got the bump, and this meant only one thing - the overbump on Peterhouse M2 was our only chance of winning the blades we so craved.

And so the chase was on. At the bottom of the reach Peterhouse must have had 3 or more lengths on us, so we set about doing what we do best - grinding them down. Power ten after power ten drew us closer and closer, and when the first whistle came for 1 length we began to realise that this might actually be possible. Once we passed the P and E we were tantalisingly close but of course we lost our bank party; we were on our own for the final push up to Chesterton.

As a last ditch effort Maria made our kill call - Kiss the Dragon - and Sam brought the rate up brilliantly, with I think every member of the crew surprising themselves as they called on their very last reserves of energy and followed. The excited call of "It's working!" from Maria spurred us on further and just as we were crossing the line the cox conceded -  we'd overbumped Peterhouse.

The crew was jubilant. We'd done it! Words couldn't describe the mixture of ecstasy and exhaustion that we were feeling. This must have lasted for a couple of minutes before a little voice from somewhere said "Erm, it wasn't a bump..."

Confusion reigned. The Peterhouse stroke claimed that they had crossed the line before the bump occured. The cox, who just minutes before had willingly conceded, suddenly wasn't sure. There wasn't an umpire in sight. More agonising minutes passed. Finally, Dr Scales appeared, his face dark and brooding, his peacock feathers nowhere to be seen. He confirmed the horrible thought that we were all desperate to deny: "It wasn't a bump". We were heartbroken.

Once we had pulled ourselves together we made the row home. Credit to Peterhouse, they had done what they needed to do and held us off as long as they had to. Still, part of what made the result so hard to bear was the lack of clarity: why hadn't there been a senior umpire on the finish line?

So unfortunately our fantastic week didn't end as we had hoped. Nevertheless, the crew should be very proud of their achievements this Lents - winning blades and going up 4 requires not just dedication and good rowing, but a good deal of luck too, and going up 3 is something to be very proud of, particularly when 8/9 of the crew had never set foot in a boat before October.

Big thank yous of course go to our coaches (Johnny, Adrian and Dr Scales), to our cox (Maria) and to the whole crew. It's been a great term - bring on Mays!