Just thought I'd give you an update about how things are going rowing-wise here at Oxford.
Torpids finished yesterday after 4 days of racing. It has been a very good week for both my crew (I was rowing at 2 in the 1st boat) and MCBC in general (from one MCBC to another!). M4, W2 and W1 all won blades, M4 (admittedly made up of ex-oarsmen as opposed to novices) made 7 bumps, and W1 are now the highest they have ever been, and M1 won the headship for the 1st time in torpids for 74 years.
(Torpids is a bumps race with a slight twist which is that if you bump you stop racing but if you are bumped, you continue to race. The course is approx 1300m from the first bungline, and the boats start 1.5 lengths apart) At the start of the week the starting positions where 1)Oriel; 2)Us; 3)New; 4)Pembroke
Pembroke bumped New just about just after the Gut so about 2/5ths of the course, this caused the new 2-man to catch an ejector crab and the division got klaxoned (stopped) however for some reason neither our boat nor Oriel eased up and we had overlap by the finish, (and a fine in the morning!!) (see
On the Thursday we lined up at the start and I definitely had butterflies; but we had a much better start than the previous day (a strong 44 rather than the panicked 49 of the day before) and we took a length off Oriel in the first 20 strokes and managed to row through their dirty water and bump them half-way down the course and had pulled away from Pembroke 2/3rds of a length.
On the Friday we had our worst day with a race that felt more like a training piece, Pembroke bumped Oriel going into the gut, 1/3rd of the way through the race 20 strokes before we did, however this is partly due to the fact that you need to steer to get through the Gut but Pembroke didn't since they were going for the bump, but due to our rubbish rowing at that point Oriel had gained 1/2 a length, although by the finish Oriel where 3-4 lengths behind, still we knew we had to step up our game for Saturday's race.
Saturday's race is a bit hard to remember in detail, and I haven't asked for the details from the people watching, but I think we were holding them to the Gut, then they put in a push and started to gain on us, but we pushed, they never caught us and we crossed the line 1/4 of a length ahead.
One other thing that must be said is that Pembroke showed a great deal of sportsmanship throughout the week and we look forward to their challenge in summer 8's (currently we are 1st and they are 2nd) There are photos on http://www.rowphoto.co.uk , http://www.jetphotographic.com and http://www.bigblade-photos.com/rowing/events/2008/ot08/index.html