St Catharine's College Boat Club

It was another beautiful morning, albeit slightly windy and W3 were raring to go. Buoyed up by the overbump of the first day our energy carried us through our coaches' needless and excessive warm up procedures. (Go to the lock and far too many practice starts on the ergs.) Making it on to the river in good spirits, we were realistic about our chances. Caius had performed far too well for our comfort and so we knew they'd be chasing us down, a sandwich was sure to occur.

Without the delays, we started on time. Enjoying our new higher position on the river we were in for a true bumps experience, a boat behind and a boat ahead we had to keep calm and row smart, not hard.

Lined up perfectly by our cox and boatman the starting gun rang out and we pulled hard, behind us Caius seemed to us to be a little off center but still coming on fast. As we rowed we watched them approach and their whistle came before we heard ours. Under the pressure we didn't falter but used it as encouragement to goad us on. Our burst of speed let us catch Clare and the closer we got, the more it was obvious they were under pressure. Under the motorway bridge we finally caught them! Caius were thwarted and just half a length away.

The carnage we rowed into, because of other bumps, meant there was no way for us to clear the river causing Caius, Jesus and Emma all to pile up behind us. (Oops) The barge 'Georgina' chasing down the rowing only added to the glorious chaos!

Day 3 was always going to be a tough race for W1 and as expected the mighty Homerton took our sandwich boat position off us fairly early in the W2 division race. We won't take it personally, Homerton have far more olympians than we do... given that we don't have any. On a positive note, we were a little relieved to give our legs a rest and skip the second row-over today!

Tomorrow, with a good night's sleep behind us we take on King's for round 3 and we're confident we can fend them off yet again, and who knows, maybe take that sandwich boat title back for another year (let's hope not).

After the calm comes the storm: as ever, drama off the water often can be as intriguing as action on the water. Needing to find a sub, we were always going to be up against it today and looking down the charts, we really didn't fancy being chased by a fearsome Ruskin crew tomorrow. Clare Hall M1 weren't going to be easy though, and held us at station for the start. Ruskin M1 quickly dispatched Wolfson M2 in front of us and we focused in on the task at hand, coming within a length round grassy. A big push on Plough reach saw us come within quarter of a length coming round Ditton. However, the quick destruction of yesterday was not in today's script. Three whistles became two as they dug deep and tried to break our spirits. But coming under the railway bridge they hit the wind and we hit them hard. Three whistles, continuous then smashing into their stern half way to Morley's Holt. A cracking result - chasing Hughes Hall M2 tomorrow. Going to be a cracker in the sunshine.

Today marked the end of the spoons campaign. This disappointed many members of the crew, who still associated "spoons" with the fine* drinking establishment on Regent Street.

May Bumps starts on Wednesday 14th June and we have 7 Catz crews participating - 4 Men's crews and 3 Women's crews.

Hover over a result to see if a race report is available. Click on the crew name to see its members.

* Divisions start 2 hours earlier than stated on Day 4 (Saturday)

For information on where to watch the bumps from see here. Division times are here.
Follow the action on the radio at http://bumps.camfm.co.uk/ and see official results here. 
For a map, see here. Join the tow-path at the pink marker, and follow it to the North-East.
Grassy corner (the second big corner, the large right-hand bend) is a particularly popular spectator spot.