St Catharine's College Boat Club

7th in Men's Student ARA Novice Division - 48th overall - 9:29

The first race of term was always going to be a tough ask, and with windy conditions forecast, we were expecting a very tough race. However, a stroke of luck meant that the wind turned to be a cross and slightly following wind, compared to the head wind most of the other divisions had to deal with. After a lot of faffing about with marshalling, and getting spun at the start, we were ready to go.

Off the rolling start, we immediately wound to our race pace of 28 strokes per minute (as we've been a little short of practice on high ratings). Down First Post Reach the boat felt smooth and powerful as we took 6 lengths out of the King's London (senior!) crew in front of us. Further pushes out of First Post corner and up Plough Reach saw us overtake them around Ditton corner. Coming onto the reach it was obvious the crew was tiring, and the balance started to go. Nonetheless, everyone pushed the whole way down the reach to push the King's crew away. The effort was obvious given the exhaustion upon crossing the line at the P&E, but we'd held the rate up well and had no major incidents, which was the main aim. The time was quicker than we'd hoped, and gives us a lot of confidence going into Fairbairns at the end of next week.