St Catharine's College Boat Club

W2 had a tricky start to Lent bumps, but were determined to finish the week on a high and avoid those spoons. 

With Harriet off fencing Sarah Lucas, more at home in the stroke seat of W1, stepped in for her debut coxing in Bumps. Some rather enthusiastic tapping from bow pair meant that the boat started at an alarming angle, but Sarah skillfully got them back on track and pushing on to Queens. With very experienced Jemma stepping in to sub for stroke, for the first time since day 1 W2 really seemed to settle into their stride and kept up a lovely rhythm into first post corner.

The bank party got extremely excited to see the Queens boat up ahead stopped dead in the middle of the river due to being impeded by slow clearing crews. W2 almost got their first whistle of the week, but then Queens pulled away again disappeared off into the distance. W2, however, were more concerned with what was happening behind them. Murray Edwards had been steadliy gaining on them and by grassy were only half a boat's length behind. W2 were having none of this. They had clearly made a decision that they were NOT going to be bumped again and put the power down together to prevent Murray Edwards from getting any closer. They held Murray Edwards at about a canvas away from them all the way round ditton when, much to everyone's relief, Murray Edwards were bumped by Darwin. There was an audible sigh of relief from the crew as they rowed over the finish line for the first time this week to avoid getting spoons. I never thought I would ever be so happy to report a row over!

Although W2 have not had the most successful bumps campaign, they should be extremely proud to get that row over as they fought every stroke to keep that clear water behind them. They have also had a huge number of unexpected challenges to deal with including a vast number of subs (and even subs for subs) to the point where it was basically a scratch crew everyday, canonless starts, gigantic crabs, and being randomly placed quite high up the division surrounded by very fast crews.

Thanks to the crew for all your hard work, to all the subs who made the racing possible, and to Siggi, Chris Q, Chris E and Alistair for coaching and bank partying. Getting W2 through bumps has been a real team project and it is much appreciated. W2, you can be proud of what you have achieved and can now work towards getting those bumps in Mays!