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Christmas Head saw the re-birth of the mighty, the magnificent, the majestic 16++.

With only a few post-Fairbairns hangovers, the crew assembled to build the mighty beast. With various cable ties and straps and planks of wood, the two hulls were lashed together with perfect precision under Gripper’s watchful eye. Only one Shan was lost in the process, opting to remain between the two boats as they were bound together, promising to kick to propel the boat.

We managed to launch the boat without damaging anything and Ferdi made it back just in time to boat from his trip to procure extra tinsel, Santa hats, and the all-essential order of 18 sausage rolls from Greggs.

The boat took its first tentative strokes and we paddled down to marshalling, discovering that the boat remains very sat, which was a nice change for certain members of the crew.

Everyone was very excited to arrive at marshalling, not because we were closer to racing but because it was time for the sausage rolls. Racing from the back of the division meant we had about two dozen small boats around us to avoid in some pretty windy conditions. We discovered that backing the boat down all 16 actually makes the boat move incredibly rapidly.

We lined up on the start and the race was off! We had a good start holding rate 30 until our first real challenge: the corner under Green Dragon bridge. Lucy and I discovered that if you don’t steer together you will feel the shear force from two boats tied together heading in different directions literally ripping the hulls apart. Thankfully everything stayed attached and we just about made it round the corner, with most of strokeside holding it up. At this point Sam looked at us to warn us “do not hit the houseboat”, we assured him we would not as 8 blades instantly grazed the side of the houseboat on the inside corner. I guess there’s a reason he’s the captain after all.

Having accomplished the most major corner with what we considered minimal setbacks, we took the rate back up and the rowers realised that racing is less fun than eating sausage rolls while messing about listening to Christmas carols (although thankfully Lucy had stopped singing by this point).

Towards the end of the race, we were gaining rapidly on the two scullers ahead of us. Fifty metres from the finish Sam called to take the rate up and whilst I would have loved to do so, it wasn’t worth the risk to the life of the sculler ahead. We cruised over the line and instantly held it up, much to her relief.

We were saved the trauma of years gone by (aka Clem smashing the bows off two boats simultaneously) as we didn’t have to spin post race but were allowed to simply back it down to the boathouse.

All in all it was a great success and we finished in 7:21 - the fastest time the 16++ has completed the course yet!

Uploaded Sunday 15th January, 20:35