Spring Head to Head 2021

After a successful Head of the Cam 2021, marking a return to racing for Cambridge, we got our chance to return to racing at city’s Head to Head. Twas a pleasant day, mostly sunny, but quite chill when not sunny, with a light headwind for the downstream leg. Results are at RowClock. Note that the race was a little short - probably 1900 m, finishing before the motorway bridge, apparently to leave Covid safety for marshalling, or somesuch. anyway, you can’t compare the times with previous years.

The ladies in the “Bubble Bath“ IM VIII in div 1 did 8:15.4 and 8:23.5 for a total of 16:38.9, coming 2/3 in their category, only 6 seconds short of Tabs. Also in div 1, the ladies vet E “Half a Glass of Bubbles” IV+ either won - or lost, depending on how you view it - their category in 9:18.0 and 9:32.2; raw total 18:50.2, adjusted 17:26.2.

The men’s MasC VIII in div 2 achieved 7:00.6 and 06:58.5, for a total 13:59.1 raw, and adjusted 13:37.1, coming 2/4 (or 2/5 if you include a City crew) to the Aquaphobes on masters adjustment, but fastest on raw time. Our aim for the year is to beat the Tabs women.

Head of the Cam 2021

The Head of the Cam, 2021 will be on

Sat 24 April

Usual head course, usual rules… errm, except for the Covid updates, usual classes. Book early to avoid disappointment.

See the Head of the Cam page for full details or https://tinyurl.com/headofthecam2021 for entries, draw, and (to be) results.

Update

Well, it happened. The weather was kind, the racing was good, and everyone has reported a good time. Results are on the URL above.

Fastest men were Nines, in 8:53. Fastest women, Cantabs, in 9:47. Previous years are noted here.

Christmas Head

Well hello there! it’s been quite a long time. Rowing didn’t entirely stop during lockdown, but regattas certainly did, so we break our radio silence to report on the Christmas Head, infamously expensive and poorly marshalled (am I allowed t say that in public?) but unmissable for all that. The weather smiled on the event and whilst we won nothing - other than me in the “finest weasel-based hat” category - it was a great return to the water. Other than fitful sunshine the most notable part was the high water, about as high as I’ve ever seen at new CRA; but with wellies boating wasn’t too bad, though our times were affected by the stream.

Results are on RowClock. A Cambridge Diary has some pix, as do City.

Camselled: or, a Sunday morning outing over Zoom

Club life continues fitfully during COVID-19, with men’s and women’s squads doing virtual outings so we don’t all turn into total lardbuckets. This weekend would have been Head of the Cam wich is just Yet Another Victim of the lockdown, alas. Anyway, here’s a screenshot of the event to remind us all of the fun: two times 20 mins, with a ten minute rest for tea, or thereabouts.

Concept2 World Erg Challenge

In these Coronavirus days we need something to encourage us to keep going. Enter the Concept2 World Erg Challenge for which we’ve formed the “Chesterton RC” team. As of our group “outing” this Sunday morning we’ve done a total of 682,066m and are #243; it’s all to play for up to April the 15th. I should add that this is the “men’s” virtual outing; the women had one on Saturday. But the WEC team is mixed.

OK, it’s now over. How did we do? Here’s our Team Meters:

1	Ralph Percival		Over	        GBR	333,333m 
2	Simon Emmings		Cambridge	GBR	220,000m 
3	Conor Burgess		Sawston	        GBR	200,002m 
4	Steve O'Row		Coton	        GBR	180,435m 
5	Paul Holland		Cambridge	GBR	168,754m 
6	David Byrne		Cambridge	GBR	139,447m 
7	William Connolley	Coton	        GBR	135,000m 
8	Joanna Raskin		Cambridge	GBR	132,958m 
9	Ian Foster		Ely	        GBR	112,210m 
10	Anne Roberts		Cambridge	GBR	104,356m 
11	Thomas Pryke		                GBR	0m

And overall? Final score was #165, with 1,726,495m, ahead of the US Marines, and quite a lot of other people. And of the "on water" teams of our (6-20) size, we were #32. Some impressive distances from the mad people at the top of the leader board, Ralph's carefully arranged 3's meshing nicely with Conor's response to Simon's 2's. And I should mention that Ralph and Paul did the "April Fool" challenge too.

Ely head

Whan that Novembbr, with his shoures soote

The droghte of Sommer hath perced to the roote

And smale fysshes maken melodye,

That slepen al the nyght with open eye-

(So Pryketh hem Nature in hir corages);

Thanne longen folk to goon on outinges

And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes

To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;

And specially from every shires ende

Of Engelond, to Ely they wende,

The hooly blisful ryvvere for to seke

That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seeke.

Anyway, yes, where was I? It was the Ely head again, once known as the Ely Small Boats Head, but no longer. We have a ladies IV+, a Mx Quad, and a M VIII, racing in various divisions. When I got there is was weirdly empty with only our trestles to reveal our presence; the middle division with the IV+ and 4x- had ended up going off rather late, and come back rather wet, though it was not rainy just a bit grey. Ely was the usual industrial wasteland chic.

74522011_10157565321177350_1832996848277651456_o.jpg

Here we see our heroic crew (if you’re wondering where the heroic 4x- or IV+ are, well, they carelessly didn’t take pix of themselves): from the bows, Ondrej, Jon, William, Sam, Steve O, Ian, Harry, Tom; Manja.

Here’s a list of all the crews, from Conor:

Richard - MasF 1x - 25:11.8 (23:54.8 adjusted)

Women’s Four - 25:58.4

Mixed Quad - 22:16.3 (21.18.3 adjusted)

Composite Quad - 12:46.5 (short course, 12:24.5 adjusted)

Men’s VIII - 19:06.1

From which I see there were boats there I didn’t even know about. Full results on RowClock. There were three Open VIII’s, in order Bedford, us and Nines. Both Bedford and Nines were tardy to the start line; Bedford started in front and stayed there; Nines slunk off and we were “chased” by Tabs, but we dropped them. The row was fine; decent quality and reasonable effort but with a slight air of unreality about it, at least for me, I’ve no idea what anyone else thought. We came second: well behind Bedford who looked Young and Fit and Rippling with Glossy Muscles; and comfortably ahead of Nines.


Bumps 2019 day 5

Last night all done. Blades for W2 (vid) and M3 (vid). Followed by an excellent night at the Waterman where I may have drunk a little more than I intended, followed by City where I definitely did.


Of M3: Congratualtions on your blades. Dave B says it's been a narrative arc from utter shite to M2.5 standard.

Of M1: a splendid powerful row-over. We were chasing Robs 2 (again! They’d failed to quite get Tabs 3 last night) and chased by Peterborough, who had got City 2 really quite quickly, so we were on our mettle (also they’d been poncing around Queens’ wearing flags prematurely…). We upped our start tempo and held it longer, resulting in Peterborough never getting more than on station, and us getting a whistle on Robs just before FP. After that we held P and chased R until we chased them onto Tabs around Ditton, which saw some exciting and good coxing by Manja to see us round the bumped-out boats and onto the reach, and home. Very satisfying and well worth the effort.

Bumps 2019, day 4

Rachel’s round-up:

W4 down :( a much better row than our first outing on Monday - the furthest so far. Let's hold 99 9 off tomorrow. Vid.

M3 up! Well done boys. Vid.

W3 - super epic gutsy row over from canvas to escaping - awesome effort ladies. Same again tomorrow? - you've got to push those pesky kids away. Vid (combo with W2)

W2 - another bump up! Nice so you're on for at least one bottle of rose (as it stands) and nine straws. Vid (combo with W3)

M2 - a row over :/ the Sharks were just a bit quicker on Xpress 2 than you were on them. Vid. [Editors comment: M2 didn’t sign on for rowing this far, but then again neither did Sharks…]

W1 - a row over - and even though I do say so myself the best row to date. Never in any real danger from city 2 we decided to make Cantabs work. Vid.

Finally M1 - a row over - the most miles rowed in the club so far. Vids: Jo, bowcam.

Here may be a good place to acknowledge Jo Crisall’s excellent videoing work for us all.