Murray Edwards College Boat Club

Regattas are always challenging for a cox; keeping an eye on the other crew as motivation for your own rowers, making sure you get the best line whilst avoiding leaving your station and clashing blades with your opposition... however, Nines was awesome!

Marshaling was surprisingly simple, except from the insistence of marshals to make us spin on the narrowest parts of the river. The racing was well organised so there wasn’t too much hanging around and spirits were high as we sat eating haribos in between races.

W2 attacked each race with gusto (yes I just said gusto) and it paid off. Our starts were very fast meaning that we could get ahead early on and psyche out the opposition. It also meant that I could move across the river to get the best line around corners, leaving the other crew to fight through our dirty water. The crew responded well to “two seat moves” and power 10s, including some motivational calls dedicating each stroke to each member of the crew. We finished off our final against Queens with ‘hammer time’ and took tankards home for the second time in two weeks.

So proud of w2, they worked really hard and made coxing Nines really enjoyable, go and have a rest- you have deserved it, and watch out Cambridge, bumps is approaching... xx

Race video:

Results:
 round 1 - beat Christs W2
 round 2 - beat Corpus W1
 round 3 - beat Queen's W2 (2.5 lengths)
 winner of women Div B

The start was not as clean as we liked. It was definitely not helped by the man who called it; i.e. practically whispered “go” as we were sat at front stops. We quickly regained our focus, though, and fully geared up into our race pace as we approached Ditton Corner. Around the corner we were met with a barrage of wind, prompting Chloe to remind us to sit tall and drive with the legs. Our piece down the reach was messy due to the choppy water, and exhausting, but we kept it up and got ready for a “mental re-start” under the railway bridge. The boat speed visibly picked up at this point, and we kept powering all the way through to the finish line.

Despite being in the windiest division of the day, W1 came second in their division by 2 seconds. This was not the result we had been hoping for, but still proved that MECBC are able to perform in less than ideal conditions. Bring on Bumps!

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Results:

W1 – time – 6:03.5

-2^nd in Mays 2nd division behind King’s (6:01.5)

-7^th of college W1’s behind Downing (5:52.6), Queens’, Christ’s, Emma, Newnham and King’s

                -beat 12 other W1’s (Clare, Pembroke, Jesus, Caius, FaT, Churchill, Selwyn, Sidney, Hughes/Lucy, Robinson, Wolfson and Clare Hall)

-8 of the boats W1 beat today are ahead of them in May Bumps, 7 in the 1^st division, 4 are in the top 10, and Pembroke is second from the headship

                                -W1 beat a crew who is 21 places ahead of them in May Bumps

-beat 9 men’s crews

-beat last year’s W1 Champs Head time of 6:10.5

Results: W2 – time – 6:20.8

-1^st in Mays 3rd division – CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!

-1^st of college W2’s

                -beat 13 other W2’s (Downing, Newnham, Emma, Jesus, Christ’s, Queens’, Caius, Selwyn, FaT, Girton, King’s, Sidney and Hughes/Lucy)

-beat 7 W1’s (FaT, Churchill, Selwyn, Hughes/Lucy, Robinson, Wolfson and Clare Hall)

-17 of those boats are ahead of W2 in May Bumps, 6 in the 2^nd division, 3 in the 1^st division

                -FaT W1 is 12^th on the river in May Bumps, MECBC W2 is 50^th (16^th in 3^rd division), W2 beat a crew who is 38 places ahead of them in May Bumps

-beat 3 men’s crews

-beat last year’s W2 Champs Head time of 6:37.6

The weather was beautiful and very warm as we marshalled all the way down to the lock. Spirits were high, and were kept high by the motivational speeches of coaches Pete and Rich. As we were marshalling, someone's oar did come out of their gate though, so we were extra wary of tightening them before the race. Only as we were marshalling did we realise we would have to do a standing start, but the practice start we did before the lock was good enough to get our confidence up.

We were off to a strong start, and cox Christina took a good line around Ditton corner as we powered through onto a windy reach. Our speed kept us going however, and we settled into a steady race rhythm, punctuated by extra hard pushes for ten, called by Christina.

This race was a particularly enjoyable one for me, having been in Robinson Head last term, when we had to marshal for more than an hour in the freezing cold weather. Today was not only sunny, but our crew really came together and produced some fine rowing.

Bring on May Bumps !

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Results: W3 – time – 6:36.7

-2^nd in Mays 4^th division behind Tit Hall W3

-2^nd of college W3’s behind Tit Hall W3

                -beat 3 other W3’s (Pembroke, LMBC and Queens’)

-beat 10 W2’s (Newnham, Emma, Jesus, Caius, Selwyn, FaT, Girton, King’s, Sidney, Hughes/Lucy)

-tied with 1 W1, beat 2 other W1’s (Robinson – tied, beat Wolfson and Clare Hall)

-WHEN W3 gets on into May Bumps, at least 11 of the boats they beat today will be ahead of them, 7 in the 3^rd division, 4 in the 2^nd division

                -W3 was only 5 seconds off the time of a Mays 1^st division boat (Selwyn W1)

-beat last year’s W2 Champs Head time of 6:37.6

                -last year we didn’t even have a W3 to enter in Champs Head

Click here to download:

Minutes for meeting 8 06-05-12.pdf (193 KB)

(download)

Click here to download:

Minutes for meeting 8 06-05-12.pdf (193 KB)

Murray Edwards College Boat Club
Minutes for Committee Meeting 8
6th May 2012; ME Bar

Present: Wing Ying Chow, Holly Smith, Ola Janusz, Reana Maier, Emma Jones, Sally-Anne Bennett, Jenny Tollman, Georgie Field, Christina Larkin, Harri Christie, Amy Crow, Hannah Grealish, Stacey Jo, Mollie Jones, Henny Schulte de Buhne, Siena Carver, Laura Desert.

1) Apologies Chloe Wallis, Georgina Dagliesh, Natalie Skorupska, Eleanor Dickenson, Marina Steketee, Jeny Oates were unable to make the meeting.

2) W3 Boat There is the issue of having W2 and W3 sharing Owen, which is problematic when both crews have to race at the same time. The situation will be re-assessed in a few weeks. It is possible that W3 could race in Winston, but this is practically not really possible as the steering is awful. We may have to rent a boat for W3 to race in.

3) Sculling Marina will set up a doodle poll to arrange sculling sessions for those interested in trying it out this term.

4) Novices Georgie and Mollie have been successful in organising the first morning outings for the novices this week, as well as an erg session for them. LBCs are to keep track of novice erg scores for them. Georgie has added all of the novices to the mailing list.

5) Bumps Breakfast Gina will be mainly responsible for organising this event. Amy and Hannah will observe what Gina does so that they know what to do next year, and will carry out any tasks which Gina assigns to them. Gina will set a price for the tickets and a date by which people have to reply and pay if they want to attend. Siena will then be able to make posters to start publicising the event. It will take place between 9-12am on suicide Sunday. The committee and W1 will arrive at 7am in order to prepare the event. We have to make sure that we have enough cups and saucers for tea and coffee in case it is cold.

6) Neptunes Emma and Natalie have written their articles, but Natalie's article may be changed as it is a report on Pembroke regatta, which was not the most enjoyable for W2. Ying and Holly are currently in charge of Neptunes. They have to show Molly, Siena and Harri what it involves so they can decide between them who will take over next term.

7) Stash/Zephyrs The main boatclub kit order has been done. Blazers: Amy will go to the shop to check that the ribbons are correct. Committee Stash: Sally-Anne will organise this. Crew shirts: Holly has done an octopus design for the back of the W1 shirts, and another design for W2. Do W3 want any particular design? Do W4 and novices want crew shirts? Sally-Anne will order these. Zephyrs: Emma will order these for W1.

8) LBC Complaints Ying has emailed Owen regarding the complaints, but he has not replied. She will try to talk to him about it again.

9) Blades Gina is organising this. She is in the process of getting a cost for the blades before passing this on to the relevant people.

10) Races W1, W2 and W3 will do Champs Head; W2 will do Nine Regatta; W3 will do the getting on race; if there is enough interest, maybe W4 will do the getting on race as well; W1, W2, hopefully W3, and maybe W4 will do May Bumps.

11) Boat Handling According to Bomber, Owen is becoming damaged and is likely to be going the same way as Harold (who broke in Lent Bumps 2011). He went mouldy because he had been repaired too many times due to too much accidental damage. It will be the role of the committee members in each of the boats to ensure that boat handling is done as carefully as possible. They must report any incidents (however small) to either Reana, Ying, or Sally-Anne as soon as possible so that they can pass it on to Bomber who can check that everything is alright. The sooner that something is reported, the more likely the boat will be able to be repaired well and last longer. Damage to blades should also be reported to Reana, Ying and Sally-Anne so that they can tell Bomber. Each cox, and the LCB for W4 and novices, is responsible for reporting any damages. Many W2 blades have chips out of them. One of the W2 blades is unscrewing out of its shaft. Bomber needs to check the scratches on Two Fat Ladies.

12) Subs Subs for this term were decided to be: W1: at least £25. W2: same as W1 unless conditions during the rest of term mean that a yellow flag prevents them from having outings. W3: £5 (dependent on whether or not they do bumps). W4 and novices: £10 LBCs need to tell novices now that they will have to pay so they can drop out if they want to. Sally-Anne will email everyone telling them the subs they will have to pay.

13) AOB

Georgie will record the days that Matt/Watson coaches W2 so that we know how many sessions each of them has done. In this way we will know how much to pay them.

Reana will make sure that W1, W2, and W3 are on the MECBC mailing list.

It is important to send out emails asking for subs for outings to the hermes mailing list, not just to the facebook group. Any MECBC members not on the facebook group should be added.

Reana will find last term's document with everyone's contact details (phone and email) and will distribute it so that people can update it if necessary. It will then be stored in a public place.

Ying has bought plasters to refill the first aid box. If anyone thinks that something is missing from the first aid kit they are free to buy it and be reimbursed by Sally-Anne or Emma, providing that they have a receipt.

We may possibly make a piece of general rowing related stash to sell to college in order to make a bit of money. Holly will do a possible design and then publicise it on the college bulletin to gauge how much interest there would be. Sally-Anne will check the cost of producing a simple t-shirt with a design on the back and the crest on the front. If a cheap option can be found then we may go ahead with the idea.

Siena will be responsible for putting up race results on the bulletin board so that we can advertise the success of the boatclub. Izzi's success in being President of CUWR and winning the boat race should also be more widely publicised. Ying will give our race reports to college so they can publicise our progress.

Small Boats Regatta took place during a stretch of the most miserable weather I've seen since living in Cambridge.  I woke to find Wednesday morning much the same as it had been the past two weeks - windy, rainy and cold.  Not exactly ideal conditions for my first race in a scull.  When I arrived at the boathouse, Simon Kirk (Captain Kirk to me, because it's cooler) my Peterhouse mixed double partner, seemed completely unfazed by the crosswind, rain and chilly temperatures, telling me that it would work to our advantage since we're actually a bit overweighted for our boat.  We'd be more stable.  Though I could see the logic of this, I wasn't really convinced.  You see, I've never steered the whole course at race pace before.  The corners were slightly terrifying me, partly because I knew that if I crashed or capsized us, Captain Kirk would likely never scull with me again.  Just kidding.  But not really.

The row up to marshall felt surprisingly good, together and strong, despite getting increasingly soaked the closer we came to the starting stations, and a few power ten's helped to settle my nerves a little.  We marshalled near the motorway bridge, waiting for the other entrants in the event to arrive.  For some reason, the mixed doubles is hugely popular this year.  I asked Simon if he was nervous.  No.  Of course not.  Captain Kirk does not get nervous.

The umpires told us to take our places, and we attempted to align ourselves next to the upstream station.  The crosswind was heavy, though, and it was obvious that we'd have to fight to keep from being pushed into the towpath bank.  After a decent start, we were off, settling into a racing rhythm as we came out from under the motorway bridge on our way to first post corner.  My hands were cold, and the blades were slippery from backsplash and rain, making it a little difficult to keep a good grip, but the rowing felt fairly strong.  In between checking our line, maintaining the rhythm and trying not to crab, I couldn't help but notice that something felt strange, though I couldn't quite put my finger on it.  I suddenly realised that it was oddly quiet - there was no cox.  I didn't have time to really ponder the weirdness of not being shouted at during a race, though. 

We took a decent line around grassy corner and made a good push past the Plough.  The double chasing us, a Jesus/Downing team, didn't look like they were making any ground on us, but also didn't look like they were falling much behind.  The line around Ditton was a bit tight, which brought us onto the reach closer to the bank than was ideal.  Under normal conditions, this wouldn't have been a problem, but with the crosswind, we had to give a good bowside push more than once to keep our blades from hitting the bank.  A final surge toward the railway bridge saw us across the finish line . . . just a second after the Jesus/Downing team crossed their finish line.

Though I was disappointed we didn't win, I was still quite happy with things - first race in a scull, no crashes, no capsizing, and a close finish, not to mention the prospect of being dry again soon.  Captain Kirk wasn't too upset about our loss, either, perhaps due to the consoling effect of post-race chocolate chip cookies back at the boathouse.  We live to scull another day. 

Reana Maier

Murray Edwards College Boat Club, 1^st VIII

Lower Boats Captain 2011-2012, Captain of Boats 2012-2013