St Catharine's College Boat Club

Rowed over.

Carnage is the best word to describe the M4 division on Thursday. Catz went into the race justifiably nervous, given that the Emmanual M4 crew 2 boats ahead were well known to be, shall we say, dodgy... In a stroke of good fortune for Catz, Emma incredibly managed to bump soon after the motorway bridge, with Clare breathing hard down their necks. Unfortunately, Emma's bump was far from conventional, aided as they were by an ejector crab from the Churchill crew ahead. Emma braked hard to avoid a bedraggled pink blob meandering to the bank, Clare held it to avoid Emma and the entire back end of the division came to a juddering halt.

Awarded the rerow, Catz thanked the bumps gods for the opportunity to have a full course shot at Clare, only to discover that with wake-free wash ahead, Clare were left to pull merrily away. Catz rowed a superb race, and held station all the way to Ditton, before fading slightly in the final straight. Saturday brings much the same situation - Clare ahead, with slower crews in front of them. Fingers crossed Catz can reel in Clare before any more chaos causes problems ahead.   

(Guest writer: Chris Eddy)

After successfulling getting a place in Bumps after the Getting on Race W2 found themselves mid division 3 chasing Clare Hall W1 and being chased by Emma III. It was the first bumps for 7/9 of the crew, with two subs in the boat (Thank you Sara and Sarah!), so everyone was understandably a bit nervous and unsure of what to expect. Catz got strong start and pushed on to Clare Hall to close the gap to a length. After the motorway bridge Emma, Catz, and Clare all managed to stay pretty much on station, before Emma III was caught by Churchill. 

With carnage behind them Catz pushed on to Clare Hall, but they began to show their greater endurance as a first boat and increased the gap to a couple of lengths. W2 were looking at a solid row over, but after taking grassy a little wide an absolutely flying Homerton II suddenly appeared from the carnage of the lower half of the division. Despit an epic last push whicih did hold Homerton off for a while, there was nothing Caz could do and they eventually succumbed to the overbump on Ditton, about 25 strokes short of the finish line. Homerton must be congratulated for their row, it was a herculean effort and Catz W2 has nothing to be ashamed of for being bumped by them.

On Wednesday W2 will be chasing Emma III...bring it on!

Bumped Magdalene M2

Having beaten Magdalene M2 in Pembroke Regatta, we were optimistic about our chances today. Nonetheless we knew it wouldn't easy - having been unfortunately overbumped yesterday Magdalene had a point to prove, and Churchill had a score to settle behind us, so were bound to go off hard. The row down was good, and notably less nervy than yesterday.

Although 'chaotic' might be an exaggeration when describing our start, it was by no means ideal. As we drifted, Maria wasn't able to keep hold of the bung, plus we lost our line. Some excellent steering from Maria combined with a healthy lump of pressure from strokeside soon got things back on track though.

Churchill started very strongly on us, closing the gap quickly. However as was proved yesterday we had the greater fitness and as time went on we slowly pulled away again. The real excitement was going on in front, anyway. We made some ground on Magdalene but more importantly and concerningly they were very rapidly closing in on Clare M2 in front of them. As we were coming through the gut the bump between Magdalene and Clare looked ever more imminent, but we were still creeping up behind Magdalene and just like yesterday with the first whistle we found a new lease of speed.

Just as things were starting to get interesting, Trinity Hall M2 (ahead of Clare) decided that enough was enough and promptly parked on grassy corner (unconfirmed reports suggest that they had no rudder). This handed the bump to Clare,  leaving a whole lot of open water in front of Magdalene. We seized this opportunity, and it was not long at all before Magdalene tasted the kiss of the dragon (Ben's sock, and our figurehead).

All this pandemonium meant a very exciting division, but also makes things rather interesting for Friday. With a fast, and annoyed, Trinity Hall in front of us, and a slower Clare in front of them, we will have to start very well in order to continue this fantastic start to the week.

Bumped by Kings W2

Having been chased by Emma the day before, Catz had a good idea of their capabilities, and came to the race quite rightly expecting a strong performance. This was reinforced by a near perfect practise start, while watching a shambolic Emma effort disappear into the distance behind. The real start was almost as good, and a superb line from Harriet and a solid push from the crew saw the distance cut to just over a length within 30 strokes, the Robert Hardie radiating more intent than has been seen in memory, as the characteristic backswing made its presence known. 

Unfortunately this proved unsustainable, and as Emma hit their rhythm and managed to slow their backward plunge to a limp (although not entirely eliminating it...) the first crab came. With Kings steaming up behind, Catz produced an astonishing push to gain clear water from a good 2 feet of overlap, but Kings didn't want to play ball, and ended the game with their own push.

Overall, a really impressive performance from effectively a scratch crew - bring on the return bump on Kings on Friday.