St Catharine's College Boat Club

Bumped Robinson after Railway Bridge

Start order: 16 King's, 15 Magdelene , 14 Catz, 13 Robinson, 12 Trinity Hall

Today was a classic bump, with us making full use of the course to keep our spectators' hearts in their mouths (and ensure we actually made it into some photos today).

Today we weren't worried about being bumped - the major concern being whether Tit Hall could hold off Robinson long enough for us to rush to their aid. In reality they had no need of us, and ultimately pushed off Robinson (who'd earlier had three whistles). With the whole course available to us, and the hungry maw of Kings hoovering up Magdalene behind, the first 6 minutes of the race were terrifyingly relaxed. An optimistic (and entirely untrue)  call from the bank party (cheerfully ignored by everyone from 6 backwards) placed us 2 lengths back (later photographically proved to be closer to three) but there was no deviation from the plan, even by the railings.

With the bank party screaming in abject terror as we passed into the shadow of the railway bridge, the crew finally took matters into their own hands, and began to hammer down the power. In the end, the bump came shockingly quickly, spinning through station, 1 length, canvas and overlap in perhaps 30, beautiful strokes. Let's hope this years bumps ends much as last years did - with us crashing into Trinity hall. 

(Guest writer Chris Eddy)