Our first proper “late” row, since we’re now proud mebers of division 2. Time at the start to say hello to Amelie before being rudely interrupted by the 4 minute gun. I was busily trying to plaster up my hand having torn a callus off and… oooohhh, it did hurt a bit. Meanwhile, back at the rowing. Tabs 7 were sandwich boat, but we knew we were faster than them, and anyway they were tired after rowing over; they faded away after about 20 strokes. So our aim was tabs 8, who we chased unsuccessfuly on the first night. But we knew that ahead of them was St Ives, who they had failed to catch the previous night; and we knew they knew that we were faster than them. So I don’t think they had much hope, and in the end after we got through the choppy water under the bridge smoothly and did a couple of pushes we had them, roughly at the first corner. All hail the mighty Chesterton M2, as our club captain put it.
[Update: the crew lists are at http://www.cra-online.net/bumps/results/2008/crews/chesterton.htm.
And 2009 wasn't so good; read all about it.]
Here we are:
or at least here seven of us are. For posterity, L to R: Jon Bryant, 4; Tom Wilkie (cap’n), 6; Dave Richards, bow; Andy Hurst, 5; Emma Cosham, 2; Ralph Hancock, stroke and Yours Truely, 7. Elspeth our cox and Nick Lee had had to rush off elsewhere.
Perhaps I could explain that we’re not wet because of the race: just for once we had a pretty dry and stylish row, if you quietly forget about the giant crab during our exhibition start outside the Plough. No, the water is because after the beer tree we swapped the boat order, so we were all on the wrong side, and put our cox at 6 and 2 in to cox. So that was a bit splashy.
Mens 1 produced another comedy finish, only this time it was pretty well the entire division. It all started late, apparently because there was a huge argument at the start after Robs decided to row with the same illegal crew they had rowed yesterday and had their bumped disqualified for. In the gut city (4) 4 bumped 9′s (3), but so thoroughly that they blocked the whole river (I think there was some question of a crab, and the cox getting lifted into the water). And so all the rest of the division was a row-over. Robs 2 and 3 livened the return up by having a race down the reach, and our M1 joined in; from my distance it looked inconclusive.
