St Catharine's College Boat Club

With a solid race plan in place, Catz W2 set off confident to catch Eddies’ this time, hoping not to have to do a painful rowover again.

Whilst Mother Nature spared us the torrential rain, she decided to give us some wind to battle through instead. Despite strong winds funneling through the motorway bridge, W2 set off to a solid start, reaching a phenomenal rate 39, which left us with our first whistle from Eddies. On the other end, Emma was also gaining on us, with their very ambitious first whistle being blown as we were taking our first corner.

Unfortunately, chaos started after the 3rd minute in as Crews ahead failed to clear the river in time, forcing all crews to hold it up, a situation division 3 is familiar with. Fortunately this time, Catz W2 did not mount Eddies’ boat, and we were left with a technical row over. We had a solid row back, disappointed not to have caught Eddies’, but glad not to have had to rerow the whole course. Third try is our lucky one, hopefully we’ll be able to implement our race plan this time round!

- Astrid de Boysson