St Catharine's College Boat Club

On Tuesday morning, W2 met for the first time as a full crew since exams for one final outing before bumps. But in a cruel twist of fate, Philine sliced her hand open while getting the boat out and, after a trip to A&E, was declared to be unable to row for an unknown length of time - possibly one day, possibly ten. Thus ensued a mad scramble to find a sub for Wednesday morning, with Anna Faulkner persuaded to risk life and limb (and injured rib) to come to our rescue despite Tuesday night's trip to Cindies.

The carefully-perfected crew order was reshuffled, Georgie went on an emergency tub session to learn how to row on bow side and our scratch crew assembled on Wednesday with an open mind about the challenge ahead. Our plans to make the most of the practice starts on the row down were thwarted by carnage in the M5 division and subsequent delays, so we had to make do with a couple of sneaky rolling starts. 

Spot the special guest

As Alex counted down the seconds from the bank, we prepared to do our first ever standing start as a crew. The cannon went and everything else was forgotten as we avoided going mad on the rate, focusing instead on power and staying technical. The start was smooth and we were already eating up the water between us and Selwyn W2 ahead. Hughes/Lucy W2 behind had gone harder off the start but we pushed them away once we'd settled into our rhythm after an early stride. The boat was moving well and the game was on. It quickly became clear that Selwyn had no chance - there was a rapid succession of whistles from one to two to three, and their cox conceded just as we went under the motorway bridge after a grand total of 44 strokes.

After the bump

Hughes/Lucy went on to overbump Pembroke W3 so we will be chasing them tomorrow, which is set to be quite a bit more challenging than today's clinical dispatch. Tune in tomorrow to find out who our next guest will be as mystery sub.

(Scratch) crew photo