Bumps 2013: Night 2

Amy’s boat (City W6): Up 1

James’s boat (Chesterton M1): Up 1

Lots of willow on Willow last night. It’s much harder to get a bump in the higher divisions, so James’s boat’s achievement was definitely something to celebrate. My boat enjoyed a second night of bumping too – great fun

Again, I’ll hand over to Emily to write up our row:

W6 were feeling more relaxed today, and were keen to build on our first bump from Monday night. Fate gave me a tap on the shoulder – well the head – when I was struck by a falling branch on my way to city (that did actually happen). Clearly the gods knew we should have foliage. Despite an absence of ducks on the row up to the start, our paddling didn’t quite live-up to the elegance and panache that we had come to expect of ourselves. All the same, we didn’t panic and remembered that we could
still get it together. And this time, we were prepared for the gun.We had another strong start and champs behind us were soon disappearing into the distance. Once again, whistles were soon blowing and cox John was calling us to focus and ‘City, Go!’ There was a moment of drama when the Nines 3 cox took a while to yield and, despite being before the Plough, there was a physical bump. It was on first post corner, at almost exactly the same position as yesterday. Boom. Emily A

and to Will, who described their bump on the Chesterton blog:

A glorious bump up against Nines 2. Actually it wasn’t really that glorious, more in the nature of Inevitable, Nines 2 having the misfortune of being a rather poor crew this year and we’re pretty good.

After yesterday, today’s race plan was obvious: us to get Nines 2 quite early, about where St Neots got them or perhaps a little earlier: before the end of First Post reach. But behind us, ah, the Sharks, who would surely know we had a slow crew ahead of us, and be out for blood, and therefore come up like a rocket.

The first part worked fine: we got a decent start, peak 1:20, and had only faded to 1:37 when we hit Nines. It got pretty choppy under the A14 bridge and closing in on them, but that doesn’t seem to have affected our speed much. The second part didn’t happen: City 3 didn’t gain at all off the start, and indeed when we last saw them they were being hard pressed by Tabs 3 (who blew up not much later). What we hadn’t thought of was that the Sharks knew we’d get Nines, and saw no reason to put themselves out pushing the start hard for no possible gain. Its nice that they were so confident of us.

Afterwards, to Queens for some club beer, tactfully leaving Nines (who were also boating from Peterhouse) to weep in peace.

Will C

Bring on tonight!