Results and reports by Event

What a great start to the term! Our starts were strong and got us moving quickly. We never dropped below 34 and our pushes frequently took us up to and over 36. The power stayed strong throughout, with great acceleration round the corners and the pairs pushes were good too. Yes, it was a bit scrappy at times, and certainly lacking in technical prowess but it had lots of guts and power - if we can do this with not-so-tidy technique, I'm excited for what we can do when we're rowing better

Uploaded Saturday 5th May, 16:54

Complaint from Christs' W2: "Haha, that was some cheeky-between-race-perving from your crew. Pretty funny. Except that we beat you - awkwarddddd! Also, yay for upgrade to Stern 4. x"

Response (from our 6 man): "We bear no responsibility for the actions of our captain Dirk. He is an uncontrollable man-child with the mind of a 10 year old, an inability to wear trousers, an incomplete grasp of English and no shame. As for the rest of our crew, our eyes were firmly in the boat as is fitting of the pros we are. Complete focus during races. I can only ascribe this perving you speak of to the delirious fantasies of your crew. As for the beating..... a four were unhappy with us overtaking them in the first leg so took us with them when they crashed into the bank. But it's fine, they snapped off their bow and I managed to break their rudder strings as we pulled away while our 4 man did his best to decapitate their cox. It was an impressive level of carnage. Anyway, our W1 did the talking. And beat your W1. Again. Awks. But good result from you guys. Ha! The promotion to stern 4 will be very temporary, we've got 6 guys coming back in a week who will all go straight into M1 so most of the crew you saw today will be gracing M3, including yours truly. Still, far better chance of blades down there..."

And then our coach fell in the river...

Uploaded Saturday 5th May, 22:09

There's a lot more positive stuff to be taken away from that race than 9th out of 10 would imply.

Based on the leg in which another crew's crash didn't keep us stuck on the bank for several minutes, we were actually fourth in the division, and only a second away from third. We definitely didn't race as well as we could have done in part 2 - there were some good moments when we were told to sharpen up, but after about 3 strokes our technique invariably vanished, leaving us unsat and slower than we should have been - and how much of that we should chalk up to the crash is debatable. But hey, for a crew that's only had one outing (and undergone some changes since then - cheers Chris), race 2 was still quite good, and race 1 would have been brilliant. Let's show them what we can really do at Bedford after another week of training.

Uploaded Saturday 5th May, 17:56

Excellent work, guys! The first race was really strong, with sharp catches helping us to make the most of the stream; the build out of First Post also went really well, ensuring that we held a consistent rate 32. As for the race coming back upstream, we transferred the power from our leg drives into some excellent finishes. As a result, we were able to overtake a Champs crew on the inside of Grassy - I'd already been overtaken once that day, so it was good to be able to be in the crew doing the overtake for a change! I was also hugely impressed with the response to the wind / build call that Rob suggested coming out of Ditton: it really left Hughes Hall trailing. Congratulations to everyone involved, and thanks to Rob for agreeing to sub in at such short notice.

Uploaded Saturday 5th May, 17:27