St Catharine's College Boat Club

W4 have had a hugely successful and enjoyable Easter term. As a crew, we were made up of rowers with a range of experience - including a number of us who only started rowing in Michaelmas and one complete novice. With every outing, however, each individual’s technique and timing came on leaps and bounds and within no time we started to really gel as a crew.

Initially, our crew aim was to give the Getting on Race our best shot and hope to get a decent time. We were therefore absolutely over the moon when our time was fast enough to get on to Bumps – becoming the first W4 (we think) in Catz' history to row in May Bumps. We didn’t stop there either. Four exciting and intense days of Bumps later and we came home with Blades after bumping Homerton, Queens, Wolfson and Emmanuel.

Most importantly, we had a fantastic time training and rowing together in the (mostly) sunny weather. We are all so thankful to the various people who have helped coach/cox/bank party/support us over the term. Of course, this wouldn’t have been possible without our wonderful coach and cox, Alice Handy and Fiona Conlon, who taught and encouraged us so much but made sure we all had fun while doing it.

St Catharine's W4, May Bumps 2018 ~ Blades

It's the final day of bumps. The banks are brimming with supporters. Catz W3 are back to take on Queens'. There's a 10 minute delay before the canon goes off and all this time the tension of crews along the river is rising.

At last the start canon blasts and the chase is on! Catz hold their opposition well off the start and for a few minutes there is an equal distance between Catz and Queens' as there is between Queens' and Lucy Cav, the boat in front of them. This could be anyone's game. As they come into Grassy, Lucy Cav take it wide allowing Queens' to close some distance. Suddenly, they're within half a length of a bump. This is not good news. Since they are top of the division, a bump between Queens' and Lucy Cav at this point would mean game over for Catz, eliminating the possibility of a bump and forcing them to row over for a second time . Only later that afternoon did coach Sarah admit that she was tempted to temporarily abandon bank partying Catz to go and cheer for Lucy Cav to try and help them pull away from Queens'! But thankfully these efforts turned out to be unnecessary. Queens' went wide round Ditton allowing Catz to gain on them. Then a combination of sheer power and determination of the cox and crew and the call to UNLEASH THE GOATS!! closed the remaining gap between Catz and Queens', gaining them a bump at the top of the Reach! Result

Today's race was truly a goats galore. Catz W3 took on Fitz, the college home to the mascot of the goat. Coincidence....or not? Little did they know that the very goats on their blades meant to intimidate the opposition were actually spurring us on! If this wasn't motivation enough for the crew, we also had Caius on our tails. Just like the scales on their siren leggings, we knew they were going to be slippery. Their displays of pre-race complacency such as "they're an easy bump, we'll catch them in 30...no wait, 20 strokes!" (overheard by Bow whilst marshalling) and their incongruous yoga ritual resulted in it hardly being a surprise when they attempted to cut us off on First Post corner. Clearly their heads weren't fully in the game, as was evidenced by the fact that they crashed into the bank. Caius could only watch in sorrow as Catz W3 sped down the river. With the threat of perusers temporarily halted, it was time to give Fitz "a taste of their own medicine". Without even the need for the kill call, the goats of Catz W3 went charging towards Fitz, bumping them on Grassy.

After Catz held it up, Caius having recovered from their embarrassing accident, were forced to row over in defeat. As James summarised nicely, "They got their bump... but it was with First Post Corner."

Once again Catz W3 held strong in the face of the adversary, albeit both a scaly and a 4-legged one.

Bumps has so far lived up to its reputation and it’s been an eventful first two days for W2 this Mays. With two girls also rowing/coxing in W4, we’ve had to recruit a few subs to get us to the P+E where we can swap around crews – big shout-out to Michael, Matt and Georgie for helping us get there! 

The start of Day 1 did not exactly go to plan. After washing our boat down the night before, we had (stupidly) not put our seats back on the slides. A frantic scramble for seats then ensued and we quickly discovered that, in fact, not all of the seats are the same in our boat. Suffice to say it took a good while to fix the problem but we thankfully made it to marshalling on time, albeit slightly more stressed than anticipated. We made the crew change and it was heads in the boat, attempting to forget the woes of our seat drama. We were chasing Christ’s W2 with Emma W3 behind us. After seeing some of Christ’s practice starts, we were feeling quietly confident about our chances. The race went smoothly and we managed to get a bump on Christ’s before First Post Corner. The fun had just started at this point however as we somehow found ourselves witness to some classic bumps carnage with about 5 boats piling up in the middle of the river, all thanks to some slow clearing from Christ’s…

Going into Day 2 we were much calmer at push off, with the seat worries of the day before behind us. We managed a swift changeover again and everything seemed to be running smoothly. Today, we were chasing Medwards W2. We got to our station and although it was slightly breezy, we managed a good start and it seemed as though everything was going swimmingly as we quickly gained on Medwards W2 ahead of us. Our race was unfortunately cut short by an umpire accidentally sounding their emergency alarm, meaning that all the crews immediately had to stop racing. Any boat after station 8 in our division therefore had to re-row the race. We spun back and prepared ourselves, feeling assured by the gains we had made at the start of the first race. The race began, and about 30 strokes later ended in us bumping Medwards W2, yet to even reach our rhythm call. 

Two days, two bumps for Catz W2!

Day 1 - Catz W2 bump Christ's W2 and carnage ensues

Day 2 - Catz W2 celebrate a bump on Medwards W2

It's another solid start from Catz W3. We get our first whistle on Lucy Cav coming into First Post corner. But then the unthinkable happens. There's a bump ahead of us, Lucy Cav have caught Fitz on The Gut. W3 keep going full steam ahead, not faltering for even a second. We're going for an overbump on Queens'. They take it wide round Ditton corner and James skilfully cuts down some distance with his neat coxing. Catz soar down The Reach gaining boat lengths on Queens'. There's an eruption of cheers from supporters on the banks, everyone is rooting for Catz. As we come out from under the railway bridge there is just 1.5 boat lengths left to close. It's time for James to give the kill call. UNLEASH THE GOATS!!! Never before in the history of rowing has the evocation of goats fuelled a crew to the finish line like Catz W3 who stampede the last 100m, finishing within a length of the overbump. Queens' are so afraid, they keep running away even after the race has finished. It's a solid row over for W3, but watch out Queens', the goats will be back.

- Izzy Backhouse (W3 Co-captain 2018)