St Catharine's College Boat Club

On Sunday 20th September, two SCCBC members with more sculling ability than perceived common sense decided to spend a day on the picturesque, if somewhat extensive, River Witham.  The Boston Marathon is a somewhat unique event in British Rowing, a 31 mile (49 km) head race that starts in Lincoln and finishes, as the name suggests, in Boston.  While this can inspire awe, horror, adulation or disgust among the larger rowing community, it does not make for exciting race reports. However, it did serve as a pleasant reminder that there is more to rowing than bumps and other "on-Cam" college races.  Racing in the highly prestigious (*coughs*) Im3 Mixed Doubles, spurred on by lovely weather, thinking thoughts of "How hard can it really be?" and ignoring the fact that we hadn't had a crew outing since June, we overtook many boats, were overtaken once or twice, and finished in a time of 4:16:07.8. With the other competitors in our division over 40 minutes behind us, we collected our trophies and agreed it had been a good day's work.  A memorable experience, and one which I hope future Catz crews will be inspired to recreate.

Day four was much the same as day three. W1 got bumped in the same place before and although we tried hard, it was not meant to be.

The crew had great fun that night and I’m very proud of how much they have come on this year. Especially those who noviced in Michaelmas. Hopefully we will be in a strong position for next year with a crew that will be on the up. A massive thank you to everyone who has contributed to the Boat Club this year and who has helped with the women’s squad, especially our coach, Georgie.

So it happened. We got spoons.

On Saturday, we had LMBC III chasing us, and in Ivan's words (or an approximation thereof), this 'will only make us push harder'.

And push harder we did: the row down was chunky, our crew finally firmly united together - it was some of the best rowing and best set we had all term. Alas, LMBC III knew we were spooning and they also seemed invigorated. When the start cannon sounded (and sound it did. By this stage of the week, our station was getting ever closer to the bridge!), both boats flew together. Whislst our start was good,  it was not good enough, and the sheer power in LMBC's boat showed through, as they hammered towards us as we entered the second minute. We eventually succumbed on first post reach.

But every cloud has a silver lining: I'm very greatful to the whole crew for the fun term of rowing we've had. Sure, we may not have been the fastest Catz M2 to grace the boathouse in recent years, but we certainly had the spirit. I'm not sure when I'll get the opportunity to row again, but this term and last week in particular have really made me remember why I took up and have enjoyed the sport over the last 4 years. To the laughs, the jokes, and the teamwork.

I'll miss you all.
- David Edey 

Saturday didn't go well. We knew that we would either award Clare their spoons or Wolfson their blades, and for most of the course it looked like it would be the former. However when we had overlap on Clare we took a very wide line around Grassy and ended up flying into Darwin, who had parked on the outside of the corner, and Wolfson rowed past. To top this all off, our bow-man Glenn was thrown into the river as he nobly sacrificed himself instead of causing serious injury to the Darwin crew. If Clare weren't on for spoons then they probably would have conceded before we could crash but as it was they didn't.

Overall, this week hasn't gone as expected- two crashes have definitely hindered us! However, we were the best performing Catz crew and only crew to get a bump this week. We also hit something (crew or bank) every day and were never bumped whilst actually rowing.

Finally I would like to thank our coach Chris Eddy who did everything he could to make us into a blades-winning crew- sadly luck was very much not on our side! I would also like to thank M3, who have been great all term despite the 9 of us rarely rowing together due to exams, projects etc.

With confidence that a slower-than-expected Emma M2 on our tails meant we'd finally have a chance of a row-over, our row down experienced a seed change, with powerful and committed battle paddling and much more optimistic camaraderie.

We had a clean, hi-rating start, and held the crews around well, till Emma M2 began to make their move into the stride, and were at a length coming round Ditton. We held them off quite valiantly, with strong and committed pushes to drive them away, but eventually, their push overpowered us as we passed the plough. Credit to Emma M2 for a good race.

I look forward to finishing this week's row with our heads held high, and with the same guts, attitude and humour we displayed yesterday. Let's do this guys.