St Catharine's College Boat Club

12th College VIII - 30th overall - 8:57

In what would turn out to be the only race for 'M1.5' this term, due to the cancellation of Fairbairns, this was a pleasing result. Despite the traditional massive queues along Riverside to get up to the start (thanks to Jed for his singing as entertainment!), and the freezing cold, spirits were fairly high as we'd had some decent outings leading up to the race. The paddle down to the start continued to make us feel better, having to keep pausing behind a crew from Merton, Oxford, to avoid running into them.

Off the start, spurred on by a rousing chant from W1, we wound to a race pace of roughly 30 (the cox box rather inconveniently broke), trying to keep the power up and the strokes long. Coming into first post corner, John shouted "2 lengths" meaning that we'd already taken 3 lengths out of the Girton crew ahead. We pursued them through the gut and down Plough Reach, guided by an excellent line from Miranda in her first race, before finally getting overlap coming onto the reach. A big push meant that we were past them in no time, and pushing off them made the race go a lot more quickly than anticipated.

The time was aobut 15 seconds faster than John measured, but reasonable consistent with the crews around us, and half a minute faster than the equivalent from last year. This placed us near the bottom of the college first boats, albeit just behind King's and Clare Hall, and faster than Sidney M1 and the Downing matched VIIIs. Unfortunately M1.5 weren't able to push ahead of these crews due to the cancellation of Fairbairns due to icy conditions, but will be back, even stronger, next term.