St Catharine's College Boat Club

W2 arrived at the boathouse, excited from yesterday’s success and feeling confident chasing First and Third W2, but nevertheless it was a blizzard outside and we couldn’t quite believe that we were going to be rowing bumps in these conditions. Warm up seemed to be going well as we did our usual front stops build in fours, rowing (somewhat) merrily down the stream. This merriment quickly ended when bow’s blade ended up caught in a crack in a wall near Green Dragon. Unfortunately, the blade became logged and almost in slow motion, snapped. Oh no, we all thought! This was NOT good. We had no bank party at this point, so Fiona was frantically calling anyone who may have been within the vicinity of the boat house, to try and source a new blade. We managed to contact M3 and got them to leave one of their blades near the start of the course. After much debate about the difference in gearing between women’s and men’s blades, and many a random coach inspecting the blade, it was decided that we should opt for the men’s blade. Suffice to say we felt rather guilty as M3 rowed past us in 7s (apologies to the guy who was inevitably freezing due to unexpectedly not rowing!).

A detailed commentary of the race itself is offered below by Sid: ‘It was epic. Picture the scene, icy breeze, snow everywhere, gunpowder in the air. A bang! And we were off. Pretty soon we realised we underestimated the incompetence of Jesus W3, who decided they liked the bank more than the river. Pathetic! So the First and Third machine took revenge for a bloody first day. Then, in the distance ahead of us....there they were... looking...ermmm...out of time. Like a coiled viper, we decided to strike. First post, 4 lengths , we kept it tidy, we stalked our prey. Grassy was a tight corner for us too, they ran wide, clearly horrified at their impending doom. They decided to go wide around Ditton, and Fiona saw the opportunity! She dived down the inside and it was neck and neck coming out of the corner. And Catz took the lead of the race! Not content with being done nor both crews stopping despite what the umpires said was a bump, they both kept racing! Eventually we took the lead and the racing line, our stern past the bow ball. And Fiona still cracked the whip, before we decided that we had pounded them into submission by enough and that this was not a formula one race. But twas not over! For queens decided to keep racing toward Catz! Eventually sanity prevailed and an astronomical shelacking from the umpire afterwards really drove the message home for Queens, quit when you're done!!!!’

Special thanks again today go to our bank party, comprising of Izzy, Jack and Sid. They risked some treacherous conditions cycling along the ice rink, which had become of the tow path, at the side of the river. A member of another bank party literally broke their collar bone during our division – so massive kudos! Overbump secured! A successful day, albeit it eventful. Who knows what will happen for the rest of the week considering the weather conditions. However, this W2 is prepared for any eventuality now and we will be hoping to chase St. Edmunds W1 in the next race.

W2 face the blizzard

Lent Bumps starts on Tuesday 27th February and we have 5 Catz crews participating. M1 and W1 are racing in the respective first divisions, M2 and W2 are starting in the respective third divisions, and M3 is starting in the fourth division. 

Hover over a result to see if a race report is available. Click on the crew name to see its members.

For information on where to watch the bumps from see here.   *Division times are here.
Follow the action on the radio at http://bumps.camfm.co.uk/ and see official results here. 
For a map, see here. Join the tow-path at the pink marker, and follow it to the North-East.
Grassy corner (the second big corner, the large right-hand bend) is a particularly popular spectator spot. 

Today saw the first on-water race of the novice women's calendar as our two boats of cats from Catz competed in Emma Sprints.

Unconvinced by the apparent importance of race starts in sprint events, the trusty LBCs had taken the executive decision to build from backstops in what can only be described as excellent long-term planning for Fairbairns domination. However it was quickly decided after NW2's first race that short-term Emma Sprints domination would also be quite nice, and the crews adapted well to an unpracticed start from front stops. In NW2's first race, they understandably lost some early ground to a strong-starting Eddy's NW1, but held a really nice, co-ordinated rhythm over the length of the reach and, until thwarted by a broken seat, were reeling them in. In their second race, they had a stronger start and were about level with Downing NW2, then pulled away as Downing caught a crab. We then caught a nasty crab ourselves but excellent coxing by Raunak meant we managed to stop the boat and reset quickly. We had about a length to catch up on Downing with 300m to go and were eating up the water between us and them coming into the last 200m. Then disaster struck as Robyn's footplate at stroke came out, but the girls adapted brilliantly and Katy at 7 kept a strong rhythm going which allowed us to hunt down Downing with just 7 rowers, squeezing past them with about 10m to go to beat them to the line. Incredible scenes.

NW1 prepared for their races with all footplates tightened and tightened again and all seats securely in position. They started well in race 1 and were looking strong against Downing NW1. We would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for that pesky footplate, as unfortunately the stroke footplate once again took on a life of its own and decided it no longer wanted to be involved in the race. The girls powered through well to the end but were unlucky that, this time around, Downing could not be beaten with only 7 rowers. In their second race, Lucy Cav NW1 had a strong start and pulled away early on, but the girls set a strong rhythm, hitting r28 while still maintaining solid technique, and comfortably held them for the remainder of the race.

Today's sprints showed a lot of promise, as the strongest elements of our races were those that will be carried through to Fairbairns: the good timing and chunky rowing once we had settled into our rhythm. Well done to everyone for a fantastic effort with some nice technical rowing and excellent accommodation of the various challenges that were thrown our way!

I still haven't been blocked from posting on the website, so I'm going to make the most of it. Plus I think this stuff is worth talking about.