St Catharine's College Boat Club

Rowed Over

AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

We knew we had our toughest ask of the week as the last act. Not only were King's II the fastest crew that we'd chased all week, they were also chasing a spooning Girton II crew who hadn't rowed more than a kilometre combined across their 3 races. The fact that they took in excess of 5 minutes parking at Chesterton didn't do a lot to inspire confidence that they'd be able to hold King's off for long enough.

The row down to the start was scrappy - the quick bumps of the previous couple of days had made us lazy in our rowing. However, the start of the race was refreshingly good, the start was solid if not blistering, and we kept the rate up in an effort to get King's. Although we did close to almost a length, it proved to be a futile effort, with Girton succumbing just after the Motorway Bridge to cap their dismal week.

We'd planned for this eventuality - overbump time! We were chasing Fitzwilliam II, and we knew we were fast enough to get them. We'd closed signifcantly by Grassy, but unfortunately at this point they were all over the back of (the also spooning) Trinity Hall II. Passing the Plough we had more than halved the deficit to 3 lengths when they bumped out on Ditton corner. With no-one in the bottom of the division left to chase, we were resigned to a long rowover.

It was a shame to end the week on this note, and everyone I spoke from other clubs to admitted that the crew deserved blades. History will show that we had 3 easy bumps on Wolfson II, Caius III and FaT IV, masking the greater truth that we were one of the three fastest crews in our division, and only denied blades by a truly terrible crew. Let's just make sure we get what we deserve in Mays!