St Catharine's College Boat Club

The weeks of preparation culminated in us sitting in our boat under the Fort St Geoge Bridge freezing to death waiting for the start of Fairbairns. The day hadn't started off particularly well as when we arrived at the boat house we realised that, with two alumni crews and M1 racing in the division before us, we didn't have any blades or a cox box, and they had managed to take our numbers with them too. However, whilst marshalling for the start with our own personally designed and hand crafted numbers,  we felt as prepared as we could be for the 3.6k that was to come.

Rowing up to the start we could see that the alumni and M1 were back and were watching us from the bank so we were determined to show off and do a flying start. Somehow we actually managed this and had the best start of the term which sent us shooting off down the river rating about five pips higher than we had mangaged during the whole rest of term. Despite all being a bit shocked at how easy '33' can feel when we are all doing the same thing at the same time we managed to sustain this for pretty much the whole rest of the race. Our cox, Beth, expertly steered us through all the windy bits and managing to make the corners feel light and easy, which we were extremely grateful for! 

We powered it home down the reach and across the finish line. Once we had managed to detach our frozen claw hands from the blade handles the general feeling was one of satisfaction that we had done everything we could on the day to make the wheel proud. Our efforts were rewarded with a creditable 5th place out of the 12 Cambridge Women's IVs, even beating the two '1927' crews who I have been informed are very good. We beat our result from last year, and were 37 seconds faster (of which I am told the stream only accounts for 15). We would like to say thank you to Georgie Plunkett for coaching us, we could not have done it without you. 

Bring on Lent Term!

Fairbairns was the culmination of a term of hard work for the senior men. We produced a decent-feeling row overall, the crew completely unrecognisable as the motley one that began the term. However our time was a bit slow for two reasons: firstly we lost our bowman to suspected glandular fever (many thanks to Chris Quarton for stepping in at the eleventh hour), secondly we raced in a later division and I'm reliably informed that the stream was slower than it had been for the other senior men. Despite these setbacks we still beat a number of colleges, not to mention the alumni VIII with a number of 'big names' of recent times.

I think everyone in the boat would agree that the term was a much greater success than our results might suggest. We spent much of the term in slight chaos, borderline homeless with the ongoing boathouse renovation and for the first few weeks without a coach, however we made huge leaps forwards as a crew in terms of technique and fitness. We still have a long way to go as rowers but I didn't finish the term thinking we'd given anything less than our best. Bring on the Bumps (they're much more fun anyway)!

Fairbairns results

Photo

In our first race as an VIII this term we produced a performance we were very pleased with. With no pretensions of being the most powerful boat on the river we did well to row a time that placed us 20th overall (of c.250 crews) and about 10th among the colleges. CULRC won the event with a time of 8:20, we trailed by 42 seconds to finish in 9:02.

Roll on Fairbairns.

Winter Head is the last head race before Fairbairns! We approached this race as a practice for sustaining a high rate for a longer period of time, and as a chance to show the other crews how far we had progressed since Autumn Head.

For the first half of the race we managed to sustain a much higher rate than we had previously been able to maintain, and started to gain ground on Caius ahead of us. After an incredible reset at the top of the reach led by our stroke, Sarah, we did let the rating drop a bit down the second half of the reach. After hearing our famous fan club cheering us on from the bank we got it together again and powered it home. 

At the end of the day we came 5th out of 10 Cambridge Women's IVs, and narrowly missed out on a cash prize. This is a definite improvement from Autumn Head, and we know where we could have made up some time. 

Credit must go to our novice cox, Beth, as this was her first ever race. She successfully navigated all the corners and kept us entertained for the entire 11.35mins of the race! 

In the Cambridge rowing calendar, Queens' ergs is a bit of a one off - being the only event where technique is largely irrelevant and it's all about smashing up and down on an erg for 500m. Catz had a strong showing this year, entering 4 novices crews: 2 men's and 2 women's

Despite competition from some crews who looked much more like they'd be at home on the rugby pitch than in a boat, the SCCBC men's crews put out a strong performance. The second eight averaged a very respectable 01:39.4 - a time that would not have been out of place amongst the first crews. In fact, the only two crews to beat them in their heat were first crews. The men's first crew also did Catz proud, qualifying for the final where they came 10th with an average of 1:35.0.  Comparing their technique to the other finalists, it was clear that they just weren't rushing the slide nearly enough - something that gives us confidence that they will be able to transfer their speed to the water very effectively.

As always the Catz women's crews were not to be outdone by the men. W2 came fifth in their heat, with an average split of 2:05.3. The first eight had a lot to live up to, defending their title from last year. Their erg training clearly paid off however, and they qualified for the final at the top of their heat. In the final they pushed a strong Churchill crew all the way, but were pipped to the finish line in the last few seconds, and finished with an average of 1:52.2. Nevertheless, being the second fastest crew is something to be very proud of.

As we come into the last weeks of term, racing on the river really hots up, and we're confident that the fitness obtained from the ergs in combination with technique on the water will result in strong performances in the coming races.