St Catharine's College Boat Club

Bumped LMBC III

Wow. That was close.

We knew that we could bump LMBC, without their gents to help them. The question was whether we could do it before that terrible Fitz II boat succumbed to them. On marshalling, we joked to the Fitz guys that they had to give us 2 minutes. Turns out they couldn't even manage that.

We produced a dreadful practice start, and knew we'd have to be much better when the gun went. As it turns out, we were solid if unspectacular, moving together and quickly to within a length. This was quickly followed by 2 and 3 whistles, although it turns out the latter was at 3/4 of a length, as LMBC were already at a canvas off Fitz before the motorway bridge. The sprint came, and despite the fact we were taking 3 feet a stroke, it looked like it wouldn't be enough and LMBC moved to overlap, causing some on the bank to tell us to row for the overbump. However, 10 strokes later we had overlap on them, and one last desperate attempt by their cox to bump resulted in strokeside rowing through reeds, allowing us to sail by. It turns out Fitz were lucky to survive the 85 seconds it took us to make our bump, and Maggie were desperately unlucky not to make contact.

It therefore came as no surprise when Fitz then got double overbumped by Hughes Hall, making our task for Friday significantly harder, although one we're confident we can pull off.