St Catharine's College Boat Club

Today W2 were chasing Hughes/Lucy W2 and they were chasing Jesus W3 in what we knew was likely to become a three-boat sandwich. We welcomed Alice Vaughan as today's special guest sub, and now that everyone was back to rowing on the right side, the plan was to return to the normal aggressive start sequence and grind Hughes/Lucy down, knowing we could catch them eventually.

H/L seemed to go for the fly-and-die approach as they held us roughly on station for the first minute and a half, by which point they'd narrowed their own gap on Jesus to about half a length. They got to canvas on Jesus but began to break as we closed our gap to a length. As we hit grassy corner, the two crews close ahead of Jesus bumped out and Jesus escaped unscathed, but Hughes/Lucy got stuck in the bank going wide and we had to hold it up behind them. Determined to continue, and thanks to some excellent coxing under pressure by Sid, we navigated around Hughes/Lucy and restarted strongly, ready to hunt down Jesus. They had extended the distance between us to about 3 lengths while we reset, but we demolished the gap with some nice chunky rowing and it was down to a length by the end of plough reach. Within a further minute, we'd easily caught them in what was neither a bump nor an overbump, but can probably be called a bump-and-a-half.

Then came the wait to find out what the umpires would make of the chaos earlier on. Hughes/Lucy had crucially been denied the chance to bump Jesus at grassy, but at that point we had been gaining faster than they were. It was decided that the three of us would have to rerow - this was disappointing after a great effort in chasing down the bump-and-a-half, but we put our game faces back on and turned around to go again, knowing that we were well-prepared after a term of hard work on the ergs.

We knew we needed to move earlier this time if we were to have a decent chance of catching Hughes/Lucy before they got Jesus. After a solid start and delayed stride, we were clearly gaining better on Hughes/Lucy than in the first row, and got them down to a length within 2 minutes. Both gaps narrowed to half a length but we lost some ground coming out of grassy and Hughes/Lucy continued to close on Jesus. It was time for the kill call and we upped the rate on plough reach, but sadly could not close the three-quarter-length gap in the time it took Hughes/Lucy to get from one-quarter to a bump, as Jesus fell back on them coming into the headwind on the reach.

It was a really frustrating row-over as Hughes/Lucy were easily catchable over a slightly longer distance and Jesus were frankly too pathetic to hold them off for long enough to allow us to save their sorry behinds.  But we will be chasing said sorry behinds tomorrow with a vengeance.

Steely determination in the rerow

Day 3 was always going to be a tough race for W1 and as expected the mighty Homerton took our sandwich boat position off us fairly early in the W2 division race. We won't take it personally, Homerton have far more olympians than we do... given that we don't have any. On a positive note, we were a little relieved to give our legs a rest and skip the second row-over today!

Tomorrow, with a good night's sleep behind us we take on King's for round 3 and we're confident we can fend them off yet again, and who knows, maybe take that sandwich boat title back for another year (let's hope not).

It was another beautiful morning, albeit slightly windy and W3 were raring to go. Buoyed up by the overbump of the first day our energy carried us through our coaches' needless and excessive warm up procedures. (Go to the lock and far too many practice starts on the ergs.) Making it on to the river in good spirits, we were realistic about our chances. Caius had performed far too well for our comfort and so we knew they'd be chasing us down, a sandwich was sure to occur.

Without the delays, we started on time. Enjoying our new higher position on the river we were in for a true bumps experience, a boat behind and a boat ahead we had to keep calm and row smart, not hard.

Lined up perfectly by our cox and boatman the starting gun rang out and we pulled hard, behind us Caius seemed to us to be a little off center but still coming on fast. As we rowed we watched them approach and their whistle came before we heard ours. Under the pressure we didn't falter but used it as encouragement to goad us on. Our burst of speed let us catch Clare and the closer we got, the more it was obvious they were under pressure. Under the motorway bridge we finally caught them! Caius were thwarted and just half a length away.

The carnage we rowed into, because of other bumps, meant there was no way for us to clear the river causing Caius, Jesus and Emma all to pile up behind us. (Oops) The barge 'Georgina' chasing down the rowing only added to the glorious chaos!

Day 3 - Result: bumped Christ’s M2

Starting positions: Queens’ M2 - Christ’s M2 - St Catharine’s M2 - Peterhouse M2 - LMBC M3

Clean of the start, comfortably winding up to rate 42, then striding down and settling on 36 through the first corners. On station with Christ’s into Grassy Corner. James called for a push on Plough Reach and we moved on them, to within a boat-length. They fought hard to hold us off, but began to crumble half-way up the Long Reach. We rapidly closed the remaining gap, had overlap and - amidst some confusion about the cox' concession, held it up - narrowly making contact in the process and sealing the bump.

Queens’, we are coming for you.