St Catharine's College Boat Club

Radegund Mile is renowned for being the most prestigious event of the rowing year, and after coming home victorious in the Women's IV category last year W1 were determined to show the field what we were made of. For this special event the glory four reunited, with the wonderful addition of Beth as our cox. 

With only a handful of IVs in the mix, and as we have actually been able to have a trial run beforehand this year, we felt fairly confident and prepared. We had a strong start, and after a perfect corner fom Beth around Ditton we motored down the reach for a good solid row which felt powerful and together.

It was only after we finished that we found out that the yellow fire had come out in force with the Clare IV being composed completely of blues and blondie rowers. Fairly inevitably, Clare won with Wolfson 2nd (not sure where they came from!) and we came third out of eight womens IVs. However, we did manage to smash our time from last year by 12 seconds which we were very happy with. The hard work in the gym seems to be translating into power on the water.

With a strong race under our belt in week one it looks like it will be an exciting term for W1!

Rowed over behind Tit. Hall

A somewhat dramatic but ultimately underwhelming end to a successful week.

After bumping Robinson whilst they had overlap on Tit. Hall on Friday it's fair to say that we expected to hit Tit. Hall hard somewhere after Grassy. Tit. Hall had other ideas however and all credit must go to them for a gutsy (and fast) row in front of us.

In the end we didn't have the proffesionalism to finish the race when we should (and could) have done and a last gasp push off of the railway bridge came 5 strokes too late as we bumped moments after their stern crossed the finish line (hard enough to call that the junior umpire gave the bump - 30 seconds of unadulterated elation, ended abruptly by the senior umpire).

Although it was a frustrating final day for us, I had a great week, and nothing fuels ergs like narrowly missed blades...

W2 had a tricky start to Lent bumps, but were determined to finish the week on a high and avoid those spoons. 

With Harriet off fencing Sarah Lucas, more at home in the stroke seat of W1, stepped in for her debut coxing in Bumps. Some rather enthusiastic tapping from bow pair meant that the boat started at an alarming angle, but Sarah skillfully got them back on track and pushing on to Queens. With very experienced Jemma stepping in to sub for stroke, for the first time since day 1 W2 really seemed to settle into their stride and kept up a lovely rhythm into first post corner.

The bank party got extremely excited to see the Queens boat up ahead stopped dead in the middle of the river due to being impeded by slow clearing crews. W2 almost got their first whistle of the week, but then Queens pulled away again disappeared off into the distance. W2, however, were more concerned with what was happening behind them. Murray Edwards had been steadliy gaining on them and by grassy were only half a boat's length behind. W2 were having none of this. They had clearly made a decision that they were NOT going to be bumped again and put the power down together to prevent Murray Edwards from getting any closer. They held Murray Edwards at about a canvas away from them all the way round ditton when, much to everyone's relief, Murray Edwards were bumped by Darwin. There was an audible sigh of relief from the crew as they rowed over the finish line for the first time this week to avoid getting spoons. I never thought I would ever be so happy to report a row over!

Although W2 have not had the most successful bumps campaign, they should be extremely proud to get that row over as they fought every stroke to keep that clear water behind them. They have also had a huge number of unexpected challenges to deal with including a vast number of subs (and even subs for subs) to the point where it was basically a scratch crew everyday, canonless starts, gigantic crabs, and being randomly placed quite high up the division surrounded by very fast crews.

Thanks to the crew for all your hard work, to all the subs who made the racing possible, and to Siggi, Chris Q, Chris E and Alistair for coaching and bank partying. Getting W2 through bumps has been a real team project and it is much appreciated. W2, you can be proud of what you have achieved and can now work towards getting those bumps in Mays!

Rowed Over.

On paper this was always a tough race. In front were a strong Clare crew, who we'd rowed over behind the previous day. Behind were Magdalene, so quite frankly there was never going to be anyone to push off from. In the end, the predictable happened - despite gaining unexpectedly on Clare, they bumped out somewhere through the corners. 

With me already planning my 'rowed over' race report, I was delighted to notice that the crew had decided, rather than playing for the rowover, had decided to go for the overbump, and boy did they go for it... Coming into Grassy still 6 lengths out, there was a lot to do, but M3 produced some of their best rowing and demonstrated real hunger to close the gap to 2 and a half lengths by bottom finish. 

Even though some hoped for more, up 2 is a superb result for an almost entirely novice crew, and something I hope they'll all take real pride in. 

Rowed Over

It would be lying to say that blades weren't in the back of our minds as we arrived at the boathouse on the last day. In fact. it would probably be more accurate to say that they were at the front of our minds, thanks to Dr Scales parading around with the flag like a peacock with his tailfeathers. Nonetheless we knew that the task ahead of us was a tough one, and we knew that we had to give it our all, physically and mentally.

Building on Friday's strong performance, again focus was the key on the row down and we didn't let Selwyn M2 intimidate us as the tailgated us down - by Saturday we knew that although we weren't the most powerful crew in the division, we were probably the fittest.

Again, the start wasn't ideal and we went off at quite an angle. Maria and strokeside were quick to correct this, but it did mean that Trinity Hall M2 made ground on us from behind off the start. We soon pushed them off however, and they posed little threat throughout the race. Ahead of us, Selwyn M2 were aware that they'd have to go off hard in order to bump Clare M2 before we bumped them, and they did, meaning that we were unable to make any impression on the distance between us. Thanks to Hughes Hall bumping out on the inside of Grassy, we had to take a wide line on the corner. A heroic hand-brake turn from Maria was the only thing that kept us from making an early exit, escaping with just a clipped blade on the outside of the corner.

Clare M2's luck had been causing chaos in the division all week, and towards the end of Plough Reach it ran out. Selwyn got the bump, and this meant only one thing - the overbump on Peterhouse M2 was our only chance of winning the blades we so craved.

And so the chase was on. At the bottom of the reach Peterhouse must have had 3 or more lengths on us, so we set about doing what we do best - grinding them down. Power ten after power ten drew us closer and closer, and when the first whistle came for 1 length we began to realise that this might actually be possible. Once we passed the P and E we were tantalisingly close but of course we lost our bank party; we were on our own for the final push up to Chesterton.

As a last ditch effort Maria made our kill call - Kiss the Dragon - and Sam brought the rate up brilliantly, with I think every member of the crew surprising themselves as they called on their very last reserves of energy and followed. The excited call of "It's working!" from Maria spurred us on further and just as we were crossing the line the cox conceded -  we'd overbumped Peterhouse.

The crew was jubilant. We'd done it! Words couldn't describe the mixture of ecstasy and exhaustion that we were feeling. This must have lasted for a couple of minutes before a little voice from somewhere said "Erm, it wasn't a bump..."

Confusion reigned. The Peterhouse stroke claimed that they had crossed the line before the bump occured. The cox, who just minutes before had willingly conceded, suddenly wasn't sure. There wasn't an umpire in sight. More agonising minutes passed. Finally, Dr Scales appeared, his face dark and brooding, his peacock feathers nowhere to be seen. He confirmed the horrible thought that we were all desperate to deny: "It wasn't a bump". We were heartbroken.

Once we had pulled ourselves together we made the row home. Credit to Peterhouse, they had done what they needed to do and held us off as long as they had to. Still, part of what made the result so hard to bear was the lack of clarity: why hadn't there been a senior umpire on the finish line?

So unfortunately our fantastic week didn't end as we had hoped. Nevertheless, the crew should be very proud of their achievements this Lents - winning blades and going up 4 requires not just dedication and good rowing, but a good deal of luck too, and going up 3 is something to be very proud of, particularly when 8/9 of the crew had never set foot in a boat before October.

Big thank yous of course go to our coaches (Johnny, Adrian and Dr Scales), to our cox (Maria) and to the whole crew. It's been a great term - bring on Mays!