St Catharine's College Boat Club

With Peter Wothers phoning in with an emergecy exam meeting, we were left to find 3 subs today. Thankfully, Ivan and Julian once more stepped up to the plate; and we got Alistair Nelson on board to fill our third gap - very well rowed, cheers Alistair!

All in all, today went slightly better than yesterday. We had a great start, very technical, but powerful and efficient. We held off Clare till grassy. Tomorrow, we are confident that a row over is definitely possible if we row as well as we rowed today, with a slower than anticipated Emma II on our tails. Fingers crossed.

PS: Shout out to our normal bow man, Stuart, who's currently in hospital with a nasty virus. We all wish him a very speedy recovery. 

With Joe Cooper called up to M1, and Stuart still ill, we roped in our coach, Ivan Scales, and M2 emeritus, Julian Russ, to assist in our efforts to row over head of the M3 division. 

We arrived early atbh, washed down the boat, and with a bit of confusion over timings, ended up mashalling prematurely, and meeting the crews rowing up from the previous division by Chesterton. So we sat under a tree by the bridge, jesting and laughing as the crews who'd be chasing us rowed by. Despite knowledge about how strong Pembroke II (rowing second in the division) were this term, morale was running high (if only in despair), as we pinned our hopes on an equally speedy Emma II catching Pembroke as we held them off.

Alas, Emma was nowhere to be seen (eventually being bumped by Clare in the run up to Ditton), and we ended up pulling into Grassy after conceding the bump. Today, we have Clare on our tails, and Pembroke (who failed to bump up into div 2) ahead.

Wish us luck. 

M3 went into Wednesday confident that we would bump Caius M3 quickly having done our best rowing in our last two outings and nailed the practise start on the day. Sadly, this didn't happen.

We were on station 6, aka the outflow station, and the wind was strong which meant that we started at an angle to the bank and after about 10 strokes were parked in the opposite bank and an average to poor looking St Edmund's crew rowed past for the easiest bump anyone will ever achieve. However, those 10 strokes have made us confident that we can get them back tomorrow.

In short, not the first day that anyone was hoping for, but stuff like this happens in Bumps and hopefully Thursday will bring the bump that we know we should have got on Wednesday.

From a crew that no one thought would make it past the motorway bridge, I think being bumped by the Plough is a testament to just how much this crew has come on this term.

W1 had a glorious row down to the lock and our start outside the Plough was quite frankly beautiful. The real thing was powerful and controlled even with a strong tail wind the girls coped really well. We settled into our rhythm and made ground on Peterhouse, coming within a few strokes of the first whistle half way down first post reach. Churchill were nowhere near as close as they thought they would be (we had been told we would get 3 1/2 mins of race time) and took an iffy line around first post meaning we pushed away from them.

Unfortunately Peterhouse moved back outside the one length and we didn't manage to get it back. By the time we came around Grassy Churchill were hunting us down. A valiant effort from our girls held Chirchill at bay and some cheeky coxing delayed the bump until the Plough.

Tomorrow is a new day and maybe we will get a second shot at Peterhouse on Friday. We rowed for just over 5 minutes so I think we really surprised everyone!

#ForTheWheel!

Rowed over.

In a victory for the Scales model of calm and efficient racing, W2 were so fired up as to make stroke literally jump off her seat at the sound of the cannon. Despite this, a wobbly Girton crew were sent off into the distance by bow seven until stroke recovered. The crew then gained on Emma ahead but were only able to recover back to station. Emma then bumped out leaving Catz in glorious isolation. 

Or so we thought until Jesus (the crew chasing the double overbump on Catz) hove ominously into view shortly after Ditton corner. Catz recognised the threat at the railway bridge and produced a very gutsy push to hold Jesus off until 2 strokes after crossing the finish line where the umpires, ignoring Jesus' celebrations, awarded Catz the row-over, thanks to some emphatic pointing at the finish line from the bank party.

Hopes are high for tomorrow, aiming to unleash the full Catz W2 start on an average-looking Selwyn crew.