St Catharine's College Boat Club

Thursday October 27, the first race of the season was upon us. There was definitely tension in the boathouse, would we win? Would Basile be on time? Yes was the correct answer to only one of these questions. We began the paddle down, half way through which Sid announced he had never won a race from the cox's seat. Our nerves suitably settled by this inspirational speech, we paddled down to Baitsbite and waited our turn for the start, attracting plenty of laughs as we were *marginally* too heavy for the boat, and therefore sitting somewhere in between the rest of the crews and the CUWBC boat under Barnes Bridge earlier this year.

Having watched M1b and W1 set off, we drew up to the start on upstream station. Due to our insatiable desire for an even set, our standing start was a tad more controlled than it could have been, giving King's a small advantage off the start. However, there we held them in the calm waters of First Post Reach. Hitting the corners we found new rhythm, leaving King's in the wake of our boat come submarine. The wind hit hard as we rounded Fen Ditton, but by then the result was clear. And for all those wondering, Basile was indeed late (again).

Unfortunately M1b lost narrowly to a strong Downing crew, but for a crew that was scratch this morning and only decided at crew pasta last night, they showed a lot of promise moving forwards into the eight next week. Special thanks to Sam for subbing in last minute after only rowing with the SCCBC for three weeks, and to Jill for helping out with marshalling.

Bring on the semi-finals tomorrow. 

This one was tough. On Sunday, September 18th the first competitive Catz quad for many years (if not the first ever) took to the River Witham in Lincoln for a brutal 31-mile battle against cramp, blisters and pond weed. A strong first leg down to Bardney Lock saw us easing past others in our division, even with Matt's zig-zag approach to some of the straight sections. Things started to get gritty after the lock, with cramp and blisters setting in. Both were here to stay and over the next two hours wore us down, with only Basile's cracked pepper crackers and inspirational speeches about all the electrolytes we would get at the finish to keep us going. At the 40km mark we rallied, perhaps in part due to Will's singing (album dropping soon), blasting past singles, quads and eights alike. Dragging what must have been a small forest of pond weed from the rudder we made it through the finish having shed blood, sweat and (mainly on my part) tears.

St Catharine’s College Boat Club is looking to appoint head coaches for both their Men’s and Women’s squads, starting October 2016.

Founded in 1833, the club is ambitious and possesses a rich rowing history. With its own facilities, a modern fleet and driven young athletes, it aims to compete at both college and national events.

Please see the attached document for further details.

After three years of no bumps in Mays, and 2 and half years since the last time Catz W1 has ever bumped we finally did it. We caught King's. We said we would and we delivered; on plough reach to be exact. It now leaves us as the sandwich boat of division 1. So a fantastic way to end this year of rowing and hopefully the start of some more bumps!

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!