CRA town bumps 2024

Well, here we are again: town bumps. Overall results: O4 - up 3; W3 - up 3; M3 - down 1; W2 - down 1; M2 - down 3; W1 - up 2; M1 - down 1; Overall +2, and 4th in the John Jenner trophy! O4 was Christ’s staff; M1 rowed in Christ’s lovely Filippi. Compare: 2023, 2022.

When not rowing I (William) was droning (occasionally at the expense of my stated marshalling and poling duties, but there was always someone there); my playlist is here. That list has a few from Jo; see more of her’s here.

Of M1

Crew: cox: Theo von Wilmowski, stroke Harry Bulstrode, Jon Hachett, Conor Burgess, Jonathon Pilgrim, Lars Okkenhaug, David O'Loughlin, William Connolley, Klaus Okkenhaug.

Tuesday: GPS. Harry's GoPro. Grey, stopped raining, river up. Arrived early for warmup on ergs and quick starts together. Good start outside Plough (1:25). Four minute gun just as we came onto station, mild panic but plenty of time. Ever so slightly over-angled at start, but start good, held City much better than expected, got 1 1/4, perhaps 1 length at end on Press, but alas they were by no means slow. But around First Post City got their act together and started coming up, and they got us between the Plough and Ditton. Note: they ended up with blades.

Wednesday: GPS. Harry's GoPro on my rigger. 6:59 (1:46). Nice Wx. I'm feeling slightly hassled due to my marshalling stuff-ups, but much less nervous than yesterday. Less faff on meet, but did some starts on the ergs. Decent row down, and the race... went all according to plan. Which doesn't often happen at bumps. We stayed on station with City for a while, they took out Press later than I expected, where they got us, and Nines weren't ever a threat.

Thursday: GPS. Harry's GoPro on JP's rigger. 7:02 (1:47). Another nice evening, perhaps even a touch on the warm side. The race again much as expected: in that - alas - we didn't catch Press or even get close; perhaps slightly unexpected was Nines rudely charging at us towards the end, but they did not pose a real threat. If they get encouraged and start their run-up a bit earlier tomorrow we might have to work harder.

Friday: GPS. Harry's GoPro on Theo's back. 7:02. A slightly duff start: we hit the end of the chain, bounced gently and turned a bit, and a slight wind blew us towards the shore, so that Harry's first stroke got a little caught on the weeds and we went down to bowside (this felt huge at the time but you can barely see it on the video). We recovered, but one or two more less-but-still-slightly duff strokes got us a not-tip-top start. However, it didn't matter: despite my unvoiced fears, Nines behind us did exactly the same as yesterday and waited until too late. Ahead, we didn't really sniff Press. And after the start we settled nicely, I front-loaded my effortly slightly as an anti-Nines anticipation.

Of W1

Crew: cox: Meg Richards, str: Lorraine Turvill, Rachel Newby, Eleanor Gordon, Beccy Garrill, Mareike Collis, Sarah Burgess, Louise Atkin, bow: Jo Raskin.

Tuesday Bump Up: First night for W1, and as we settled at our starting position 14 nerves were riding high, but we had a decent start at the canon with good build on our pace. We quickly closed in on Rob Roy 2 and we caught them in the Gut, just past first post corner. It was a bit of a surprise for

us and we were of course overjoyed. It was the first willow for W1 since 2018, first bump for several crew members and also for our boat Annie Eliza.

Wednesday Bump Up: Feeling buoyed by our Tuesday night success we were (ever so ever so cautiously) feeling anything could be possible while we did our pre-race planks. We did a great start outside the Plough, to our delight, and we rowed up to our new starting position 13. A shorter race this evening, slightly slower pace, but we delivered another bump to the Xpress1 crew just before first post corner where all chaos ensued resulting a broken blade (not ours, nor our fault!).

Thursday Relaxed Row Over: On setting out for our third outing of the week we weren’t sure what to expect on this lovely warm evening, but doing the maths we thought our worst outcome would be a row over. From position 12, we started well and eagerly built to our race pace and got in our stride. It soon became apparent that the two crews in front and the two crews behind had bumped out; once we were sure the coast was clear, we enjoyed a row to the finish allowing ourselves to take the rate down a few pips.

Friday Excruciatingly Close Row Over: Once again starting at position 12 we prepared ourselves for a ferocious final night. Our confidence boosted over the course of the week, we set our sights on bumping Nines 2 - a poignant race as we go into battle with a few old Chesterton crew mates in the boat ahead. We had a cracking start at the gun and we executed our plan to mow down our rivals, chomping up the space between our two boats. We got to about ¼ length between us, their cox was looking around anxiously as the whistles sounded, we so nearly got them… Alas, after our planned 4-minute attack, Nines pulled slightly ahead and we battled on for the rest of the course but we didn’t manage to catch them. It was a good fight well fought and we were proud of our week’s achievements despite not quite making the final bump we were after.

Back at the boat house prosecco was had and Annie Eliza got the christening she never had when she first joined the club. It was an exciting, exhilarating - if excruciating - crescendo to a fun bumps week!

Vets Head

To Vets Head, forsooth, propelled by the enthusiasm and organisational ability of our esteemed Captain, El Ralpho. This feels like the first smell of the Thames for the men for a fair few revolutions; was it really 2018, or have I been lax in my blogging?

Results are here. We came 9/16 in our MasD category in 20:09.5, which was a decent result. We were overtaken by very quick Upper Thames and Molesey early and o'took Peterborough #39 at finish.

We were: Cox: Meg Richards, Stroke William Connolley, Jon Hatchett, Ralph “El Capitano” Hancock, Chris Wood, Simon “I can’t see you” Emmings, Klaus Okkenhaug, Bow: Paul “I’m on the Thames at last” Szyszko. Thanks for support from Rachel Newby, Mihai and Joned.

We boated from Furnival as ever, though we trailered to Sons, leading to minor hilarity.

Winter League 2024

The theme of this year’s Winter League was Wet. Leg 1 escaped that, but leg 2 didn’t, with NovW being pulled due to Stream; and leg 3 was rainy.

Results can be found on Rowclock. Actually pasting them in here is tedious and unlikely to be very useful, so I won’t. The men’s MasC crew - our only men’s WL crew - came 3/8 in the MasBC category (and won the first leg), which was nice; the women’s ClubB crew was 3/7 in their class, and the WMasE was 3/5. Sadly the WNov crew let the side down by coming 2/5.

Norwich Head

Norwich head; or: Chesterton men leave the Cam for the first time in yonks.

GPS traces: short course; long course. Draw. I made a copy of the results here.

This is a quick post written well in arrears, just for the records.

We had a 4-, in divs 2 (short) and 3 (long); and the Dev VIII in div 3. We were the only 4- I think so had no chance for a pot. The 4- came 4th in div 2 in 7:20; and 7th in div 3 in 21:53. The VIII got 23:17.

Train to Norwich, walk station to rowing club (about 40 mins) we were trailered by… Champs?… and weren’t on till div 2 so didn’t have to get up too early. Due to the wet, wellies were needed for a 50 m stretch of the approach track, and the river edge itself was under water, but that wasn’t problematic. The club is good, there’s a lovely boathouse with wide views and nice cakes. The short course is in the into town upstream direction; the long is out of town. My, how I remember burning with anger when Dan stroked us at 30 all those years ago; I knew we should have upped the rate. Post races: into town to The Belgian Monk for food and drink. Train home.

Oh, who were we?

Long course 4-: Chris Wood (Stroke); Harry Bulstrode; Klaus Okkenhaug; William Connolley (Steer).

Short Course 4-: Ralph Hancock; Me; Dave Richards; Simon Emmings (Steer).

VIII: Cox: Simon. Stroke: Mihai, Dave, Joned, Jon, Owen, Nils, Chris Lloyd, Alex Caz.

We also went to Norwich in 2011: club blog post; my personal one.

Winter Head 2023

The Cantabs Winter head was a bright sunny day, which was just as well as there was a certain amount of waiting around marshalling. Full results are on RowClock: our men, Tramontana, was 9:54 raw and 9:39.1 as MasC; the women SuperHoops 4x 12:18.3 and 11:27.3 as MasE; and in Dawntreader 12:04.7 and 0:11:32.7 as MasD. We didn’t win (though the men were the fastest master’s VIII and would have won club B, had we entered it…).

CRA town bumps 2023

And so the pinnacle of the rowing season arrives: town bumps. This year Chesterton has seven crews: three women’s and four men’s, with M4 being the Christ’s Staff, coached by Kate.

Day’s reports in last-first order.

Overall: M1 +1; M2 -2; M3 +2; M4 -1. W1 -3; W2 -3; W3 -3. M3 win the “captain’s blades” prize.

Day 5

Briefly: M1 row-over (vid); M2 technical row-over (vid); M3 row-over (vid); M4 row-over. W1 down (vid), W2 down (vid), W3 nearly up, but alas down (vid).

And then we went to the Waterman and then we went to City. And some of us did silly things.

M1: another good row (GPS) and indeed the GPS has our pratice start at just fractionally under 1:19. And my nerves at least had settled. But nonetheless, somehow, we didn’t hit peak form and the race while good wasn’t good enough; we didn’t get so close to Xpress tonight. Perhaps seeing Nines 3 taken out by City 3 down the Reach removed a certain motivation. But: we’re up one for the week, and the crew was a pleasure to row in.

Day 4 (M4 doesn’t row)

Briefly: M1 (vid) and M2 (vid) row-over; M3 (vid) up; W1 (vid) and W2 down; W3 (vid) row-over.

Day 3 (M3/W3 don’t row)

Briefly: M1 row-over; M2 down; M4 down; W1 and W2 row-over.

M1: (GPS; vid): new practice start record (just over 1:19). Decent real start, the first whistle took longer than last night but the cries of “inside station” from the bank were audible. City 2 bumped out on Nines 2 at Grassy, we closed to half a length around Ditton, probably got overlap down the Reach but not consistently, and alas didn’t manage to close them down. It was quite bouncy. Tomorrow, perhaps, with wash ahead of them too we’ll get the small relative boost required. Elsewhere, City took out Nines for headship.

Day 2 (M2/W2 don’t row)

Briefly: M1 up, M3 and M4 row-over; W3 and W1 down.

M1: (GPS): Excellent paddle down and start (1:20); decent real start and a looong wait for a whistle (entering the Gut I think) then two then three down Plough reach and I think we got a better Ditton and had overlap coming out to bumps at the top of the Reach. Scarily close at First Post / very finely steered by Will. Bumped: Tabs 3, Hills Road. Behind us, as far as I could see, I think Mallory closed on Nines 3 quite quickly to maybe FP, then faded, and were off by Ditton. Ahead, City 2 got Xpress so bring on Wednesday. Vid from Paddock.

Day 1 (M1/W1 don’t row)

Briefly: M4 row-over; M3 up, after a heroic chase of Nines 9 (watch it here!); M2 down, alas, when half a length off Nines 6, caught by the Rad in the gut (vid). W3 and W2 both down.