Category: Novices

After seven weeks of training, Murray Edwards has four novice crews going into Fairbairns races this year. With ice in front of Goldie boathouse the day before novice Fairbairns, the weather forecast was definitely against us.

Yet at 7:45am it was found that, though snow was coming down, the river was in fact fluid enough to race on– hooray! The day's races proceeded according to a revised schedule that was only posted the day before the race, with a shortened course that finished at Peter's Post (1814m from Jesus boathouse).

First two races of the day were Mr Frisky and Hedgehunter. Mr Frisky has a reasonable start, got round corners very effectively, and did a tidy push to the finish. Hedgehunter had a rougher start, but with the river wide open ahead and behind them they had a good row, passing all the corners without major incidents.

The same cannot be said of the Sidney Sussex 3rd novices who were chased by Really Fast Horse in the late morning division. Firstly, we caught up with them just after Elizabeth Road Bridge and had to stop rowing, and restart with a gap. As we came around the corner with Churchill boathouse they crashed into the outside of the corner which allowed us (thank god) to overtake them with a large margin.

Though I did not get to see Comply or Die in their race, they came a very respectable 9th of the Cambridge colleges, beating the likes of Magdalene, Downing, Sidney, and First and Third Trinity.

Mr Frisky came 32th out of 51 in the womens' division, placing them 8th among college novice 2nd VIIIs, and beating the 1st novices of Robinson among others.

Really Fast Horse and Hedgehunter came 37th and 38th in the division. Though they appear to be slower than Selwyn III, there is a Selwyn II boat much further down on the results, which could mean that Selwyn have swapped boats without informing the race organisers. This means that Really Fast Horse is 2nd, if not 1st, out of the college novice 3rd VIIIs. Well done!

Finally, Hedgehunter is the only college novice 4th VIII in the womens' division this year. Yet they have beaten Homerton, Girton, and St Edmund's 1st novices, not to mention numerous other 2nd and 3rd VIIIs.

Other fun facts:
 – as a club we have consumed 4 packs of jelly sweets, 2 packs of dolly mixes, 2 bags of starbursts, and 5 tubes of vimto chewy sweets today.
 – this, I think the best photo from today http://www.jetphotographic.com/showphoto.php?id=211704

I cannot say how proud I am of all of you. Well done for staying with us all term. Well done for all the subbing needed to make today happen. Well done for all the singing and manning up against the snow and cold. Well done and hope to see lots of you coming back to row as seniors next term.

Ying Chow
Vice Captain

Posted via email

W1 arrived at the boathouse on a cold, dark Saturday morning, eager for our first head race of the year. Plenty of layers were donned, and we rowed up to the motorway bridge for marshalling. We pushed hard over the 2.5km course to the P&E, avoiding any massive drops. As a reward for our effort, we came joint 8th Cambridge College, tied with our boathouse companions Peterhouse.

Novice races in short: An excellent first race from all 3 boats, after spending forever sitting at marshalling eating copious amounts of sugar. Good rolling starts and well maintained speed and technique throughout. A 2nd place finish from Comply Or Die is especially impressive considering the flying seat incident at The Plough, leaving the boat with 7 rowers for around half the course.

Under 2 weeks until Fairbairns!! Get ready for some embarrassing songs at marshalling to fight off the frostbite.

Eve Bonner
Captain of Boats

Posted via email

Well done all those who raced Queens Ergs last night! The official results are not up yet, but briefly, the 5:30 team beat all the other teams racing at 5:30. The 6:30 team finished in the top half of the teams racing at 6:30, and the 8:30 team came 9th out of 35 in the first round, qualifying for the finals. Though we didn't make it to the top in the finals, we did lead the competition for at least the first third of the division, and finished with an average time of 1:55.6 which I think we can all be proud of!

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