Day 2: 20 strokes

Or thereabouts. Might have been 15, might have been 25. Barring disaster we were always going to get robs 6, and they knew it just as well as us. Good turn out on the bank to watch us as well, so all the more satisfying. X-press 4 were 1, so assuming they didn't bump up into M2 (unlikely, since they are reckoned to be slow) the plan is to catch them tomorrow and be sandwich boat ourselves.

Meanwhile, lower down the division, M3 rowed over after being overlapped briefly - they have a slow start. They will catch the boat ahead of them, if only they can hold off. W2 went down, W1 rowed over, and (sadly) M1 went down too. Fairly thoroughly, to the extent of running their bow onto the bank, so some of the bows had to get out to refloat the boat. They will have a hard time tomorrow.

Thats our bump from today. Robs were a bit silly conceeding so late, Dave is doing a good job of not whacking their cox in he back, while their stroke has taken a tumble.

For those few of my readers not fully familiar with the bumps, the first few photos from this division are good: just poling off, about 30 seconds to the gun, we're the third boat down and Andy Nicol is our man on the bank. A few strokes in and we're looking very ragged and unbalanced. From that pic, I wouldn't have bet on us. X-press 4 are looking good too: I suspect they may have more technique and less oopmh. Maybe 10 strokes in and X-press are still looking very pretty; I think you can see from this that we're very close to Robs. Our bump, and us holding it up whilst everyone is shouting at Robs to clear the river. At last, our boat is level :-).

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