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Robinson Head 2018
Friday 9th February
1st Men's VIII
Bow: Alistair Brown 2: Gabriel Bliard 3: Will Broadbelt 4: Rory Fairhead 5: Ollie Dutton 6: Matt Simpson 7: Jon Swain Stroke: Jordan Thornton Cox: Julia Kelsoe
2nd overall with a time of 7:30.2
There was some discussion of scratching as we had two subs (in Ollie and Julia), but we decided to go ahead anyway due to having top quality subs and that, if nothing else, it’d be good practice.
On the paddle down we put some burst’s in, which felt silky smooth instilling some confidence. We spun down at the lock, banked up and waited for the other crews to arrive (all 4 of them). As a few minutes stretched to 10+, a marshal approached who told us we were waiting for one last crew to arrive: Clare W1. Apparently no one told them they had scratched…
The race was a rolling start so we opted for doing a standing start a little downstream of the start. We whipped it up and were at a good r38 as we passed first post. The rate settled down early though, but we kept it solid through the gut and plough reach, if a little too comfortable. As we rounded onto the reach the boat was moving sweetly and there was little wind to speak of so we felt good to push on. In the last third of the reach we really started to pick the rate back up and push it onto Railway Bridge, so that as we passed under the bridge we were flying. In the last push to Peter’s Post we emptied the tanks and crossed the line spent.
In our post-race chat, Grip was a little pessimistic telling us that we had undercooked it off the start, not attacking it with enough venom and therefore had too much to give towards the end. We all felt this was a pretty fair assessment so were not too happy with our performance. However, it wasn’t all bad, as when the results came in we found that we had come 2nd, only 3 seconds behind the ever-strong Downing.
All in all, we had a decent result and have found some more things to work on in the last few weeks before bumps.
Cave Adsum
Uploaded Wednesday 14th February, 11:29