The weather had cleared to an almost-but-not-quite sunny afternoon and the crew members were all in good spirits. We had rowed over and were now at the back of 1st division, determined to make it firmly into said division. Providing enough marshalls had proven to be a bit of a problem, though, and so we were a rower short when pushing off from the boathouse – 2 did an admirable job of trying to respond whenever the cox forgot herself and yelled “three take a stroke!” but we must have looked more than a little funny rowing in an odd, rolling constellation of fours – a bit like a crippled spider with several of the blades pointing in weird directions, and indeed we were laughingly cheered on by onlookers at other boathouses.
Once spun and ready for the canon, which sounded timid and far away from our far position at the Lock, the mood was one of eager anticipation. It was quite windy on the river but we put down a lot of power at the sound of the third canon and soon heard the first whistle, followed shortly by another, then two. The power-technique trade-off was firmly on the power side but it paid off and by the motorway bridge we had overlap; by another power ten we bumped Selwyn W1.
Our first bump of the season has us chasing Magdalene W1 tomorrow, and, feeling empowered by our swift success and Reana’s race baking, we think we just might bump them too.
Anna Frosig, bow, W1