St Catharine's College Boat Club

Today, we knew our goal was to row over in front of Clare.

We had a great start, and despite striding to a pretty strong 35, we had shouts from the bank to keep it high and capitalise on our push onto Emma. As it turned out, we kept within station of Emma for our whole row, but Clare began coming up on us, getting their first whistle around first post, and closing to overlap coming into grassy. Today, the kill really worked, and after a fine line by Tash around the corner, we were left with a canvas of breathing room. Clare pushed onto plough reach, but we did a second kill, and again pushed away, more succesfully than yesterday.

As we neared Ditton, the relentless pushing from the stronger Clare crew finally began to overwhelm us, and Anton's (the Clare Boatman's) chiming bell for overlap was our death knell, and we were hit on the exit of the corner.

It was a gutsy row, and we can hold our heads up high.

Tomorrow it's a fast Churchill chasing us. We're ready. I hope they are too.

Well, we were bumped again...

But on the bright side today was a lot more fun! We made it around Grassy, the furthest yet! And to top it off, Murray Edwards forgot that you have to hold it up and clear the river once you’ve bumped. They decided that it would be a good idea to sit in the middle of the river at grassy corner meaning that the rest of the division was re-rowed.

Bring on the final day! Let’s see what we can do tomorrow! 

So day two was not meant to be.

A stomach bug meant that the cox couldn’t even get in the boat to push off at the boat house. Luckily the lovey Natasha was able to jump into the boat and save the day and did a valiant effort.

Unfortunately Newnham were faster than us today. We had a clean start and footage from the GoPro on the Bow of the Newnham boat showed a very stable gutsy row.  Unfortunately they were faster than us and a bump was inevitable, but we held them off well and we should be proud for the distance achieved.

Tomorrow holds a new battle. We have Murray Edwards behind who have rowed over in front of Pembroke for two days. They’re going to be hungry to bump, but we will of course give it our all. Let’s see what day three holds!

Bring it on!

We knew Emma were fast, and it turns out they were too fast.

Our start was reasonable, and we certainly didn't crumble under pressure, but they were soon bearing down on us. They managed to get overlap by the end of the gut, but we held them and began pushing away out of grassy, only to get caught by their push onto plough reach.

They rowed over bottom of M2 as we did yesterday (Pembroke naturally bumping Eddies in front), so we will be chasing them tomorrow. Behind us lies Clare II, a solid crew, but one I believe we can hold off.

Till tomorrow, and another joyous rowover.

FTW. 

When you tell people you're intending to bump back the crew that bumped you yesterday, they tend not to believe you (not naming any names (Chris Eddy)). However I had every faith that W2 could do it today, and as expected revenge was plucked like a fruit from the twisted branches of the tree of bumps.

The race was actually a very exciting one - the chasing Darwin crew are clearly very strong and moved up on Catz as quickly as we moved on Murray Edwards. But W2 had the resolve to finish the job first and claimed the bump with admirable composure. Tomorrow provides a classic bumps opportunity: hopefully Darwin will ensure things are kept quiet behind with a bump on Murray Edwards, whilst ahead lie a falling Sidney Sussex. Let's just hope Chris remembers not to lend us his quiet whistle again tomorrow.

W2 post-bump!