St Catharine's College Boat Club

Bumps races come in many forms. There are the all-too-quick bumps between crews who start at different speeds, there are the rows-over in glorious isolation, and there are the hard-fought, ground-out bumps which are perhaps the most nail-biting to watch. W2's race today was none of these. It was, quite simply, a ridiculously close row-over of epic proportions which will, I'm sure, never be forgotten by those who were there.

Catz had a strong, clean start, quickly pushing Clare Hall W1 away from them. After negotiating some carnage, they found themselves being hunted down by a resurgent Clare Hall, who had so far rowed over every day this week. The gap kept closing, and W2 kept pushing off them, and still the gap closed. We were the last crew to go to top finish, and were pushed every stroke to the line, the margin at the finish being a matter of feet. Huge credit is due to the crew for keeping their heads under such pressure in their first set of bumps. Tomorrow Clare Hall will be back to do battle once more, but the Catz spirit has been set ablaze. I know who I'm backing.

No revenge bump for W1. Although keeping on station with Churchill, we were pipped by a powerful Girton crew. The aim of day two was to push them off further than we had done with Churchill, but in W1’s consistent style we held them off for about equal distance; just before first post. It has been a disappointing start to Lents for us, however we are determined for the row-over!

There were a few nerves in the boat as we rowed down to the start; would we be able to repeat our performance from Day One?  We knew Girton behind us would be hungry for revenge after their unlucky first day, and the rumours were that Christ's up ahead were faster than King's, and might not give us a chance to catch them.  As expected, Girton made a strong push out of the start, but like with Fitz the previous day we ignored them and focused on the boats ahead.  We took distance out of Christ's along First Post Reach, but the news came that they were already gaining fast on King's, and when they got two whistles in the gut I think we realized we weren't going to bump that day.  With Girton fading hard behind us everything looked set for a peaceful rowover, and so we settled in on the Reach to take it home safely.  We were well over the finish line and nearly stationary when Clare, having started four stations behind us and apparently ignorant of the bottom finish line, came hurtling towards us at the P&E with no apparent intention of stopping.  The umpires got confused and shouted at us to row on, and after one of our quicker starts we set off again and only wound down after the top finish.  Unfortunately top finish also seemed to be an unknown concept to Clare, who continued to career towards us as we sat at easy under Green Dragon, and only after some very angry shouting from our cox did they hold it up and leave us to row home after an odd and slightly disappointing but by no means bad race.

We were denied a bump yesterday, and any nervousness was gone. Our regular cox Anna back in the driving seat, M3 was hungry for a bump, and Trinity Hall was in our crosshairs. We rocketed off the start, winding it up to rate 47, lengthening out each stroke as one whistle blared. Two whistles cut through the air as we came up to the motorway bridge. We made a stride down to 38 under the bridge, within seconds we heard three whistles. Coming away from the bridge we were at their stern, 3 seconds later past their cox. Like many first times, this first bump happened much quicker than expected, but it felt great! For stroke side in particular it was a glorious feeling of achievement to get that first ever bump. We rowed home with foliage displayed proudly, ready to hit Maggie hard tomorrow.

The tension was palpable on the row down to station 11, it was all of stroke side’s first ever set of bumps. We had guest cox Joe Cooper there to keep the nerves under control – thanks Joe! We were chasing Emma M3 who looked a lot further away on station than Caius M3 did behind us. We had a solid start, and we chipped away at Emma from the get go, Caius quickly faded to the background. We failed to stride, but we were gaining on Emma, so it was tough to let up! The whistles were blowing, and a boat’s stern was visible in the periphery, but unfortunately Emma had caught Tit Hall before we managed to closed the gap. There was carnage up ahead so we were left with no choice but to pull over and accept a technical row over. Still, no spoons at least!