St Catharine's College Boat Club

The final day of May Bumps 2016 would prove to be an emotional one for many, but particularly for W2. We were excited and positive after yesterday’s bump. We knew it was going to be the toughest day yet…but we couldn’t have predicted what was going to happen. We were once again chasing Jesus W3, and this time being followed by Selwyn W2, who we caught yesterday.

We thought Selwyn would be bumped quickly and that any pressure from behind would be from Clare Hall W1 (on for blades), attempting an overbump. We had chased Jesus W3 earlier in the week, and several of us had been in the crew that they had bumped on the last day of Lents. Realistically we had nothing to lose and were full of energy from the highs of the week. We set off well, chasing them down quicker than we expected, and by first post corner our cox had called ‘the kill call’, we had “considerable overlap”, and then came the bump…twice. Our bank party saw it and bow pair felt it, but the Jesus cox didn’t concede and they kept going. Confused as to what had happened, and why the umpire hadn’t called it, we rowed on. Exhausted and confused we were eventually bumped on the long reach by Clare Hall.

Pulling over, we were told the distressing news: we’d bumped but it hadn’t been seen by the umpire or conceded by Jesus and therefore didn’t count. After long conversations with the people in charge, showing photographs on a small phone screen we were told “you can’t prove contact from a photograph, and unless the photograph is square on to the boats they won’t accept bow-ball passed the cox”.

Going down three places in the tables after one row over and two bumps is soul destroying, for all involved. I don’t think any of us will forget in a hurry how cruel bumps can be, but it will give us the fight to come back next year. The energy, passion, spirit, and the hard work of W2 is evident from the speed at which we bumped a crew who admittedly were better than us in Lent Term. I could not be prouder to write this race report on behalf of a group of girls I truly admire. FTW!