Category: W1

A new academic year and a new MECBC W1. Crew announcements had occurred on Tuesday and with only two outings under our belt, our first weekend together also saw us on the river for our first race of the term – Autumn Head 2014.

With only two rowers back from last year’s successful Mays First VIII, we had many new faces excited to experience their first taste of representing the Club in the First VIII and racing in Octopussy. In a term traditionally dominated by novice-traffic, we were looking forward to a chance to enjoy 2.6 km of uninterrupted rowing and set ourselves a benchmark to work from for the rest of term.

Super keen as we were, we were a tad on the early side to marshalling and Christina had to negotiate reversing around Chesterton corner to avoid being run down on the finish line by boats from the division before ours! For the race itself we had a moderately-strong wind to contend with, but despite this we went off quickly under the Motorway Bridge. We pushed up hard on the boat we chased along First Post Reach, to the extent that they were being told to prepare to give us space to pass. Unfortunately, over the second half of the course in particular, the fact that this was W1’s third outing of term became all too evident in our stamina, technique and togetherness.

On this particular day we know we didn’t show the best of what we’ve got to offer as a crew. But our sights are now on Winter Head and Fairbairns later this term – W1 will be back and ready to show the Cam what we can really do.

Emma Heydon, stroke

After 5 races, including 3 row overs across the full course as sandwich boat, W1 were grateful the glaring sun had retreated behind clouds for the final day of Bumps. The previous days had been as exhilarating as they were tiring, but today we set ourselves a simple goal that dispelled all weariness: level up. If we raced like we knew we could, station 17 in the Women’s First Division would be ours.

We pushed out for our first row atop of the second division, followed by college President, Dame Barbara, who had bank partied both W3 and W2 already. We executed a crisp and powerful start so that Kings W1 were not able to gain a whistle on us like the day before. After Grassy we watched as Kings fell to an exceptionally strong Jesus W2 crew, leaving seemingly endless clear water behind us. As we rounded Ditton, we were confident enough to take the rate down a few pips to conserve energy, and we hit a calm but assertive stride. Then Mark alerted us that the only other racing crew on the course was Downing W2, the sandwich boat at the other end of the division. Everyone else had bumped out! We wound it down to a firm paddle, and exchanged pleasantries with the crews marshalled for the M2 Division as we rowed down to top finish, Downing W2 still nowhere in sight. Has there ever been a more casually rowed Bumps race? Maybe only Ying knows. Either way, this row over was definitely my favourite of the week.

Phase 1 complete. We span to reclaim our now habitual sandwich boat marshalling spot and refuel on flapjacks and sweets. We also discovered the full story of W2’s almost-bump on Trinity Hall W2, giving us even more impetus to bump their W1. On the row up, driven on by the crowds, we had one of our most powerful and fastest starts in front of the plough. As we pulled in at the last station, dangerously close to the lock, it dawned on us that for at least two thirds of the crew this would be our last ever Bumps race, and last ever outing as a crew. Another reason to push hard.

Our final start of Bumps wasn’t the tidiest we’ve ever been, but as a crew we were more single-minded than ever. We closed down on Trinity Hall and caught them after the railway bridge. The 17th spot in W1 was ours. Phase 2 complete. Level up.

The most memorable moment was the row home, knowing that the club had finally finished in the W1 division for the first time since 2005, knowing all our hard work had paid off and writing the latest chapter in the club’s history. As we rowed past the Plough, W2, W3, friends, family and it seemed the whole of Cambridge sent up a wall of noise as if we were rowing through a stadium. I may never hear that sound again, but I am going to bet that next year’s W1 will.

Holly Smith

Oddly enough, the race plan was for a row-over – we were racing at the top of the division, ahead of King’s whom we had bumped the day before. We had a strong row-up, catching up with King’s several times and winning the psychological battle.

We had a long wait for the cannons, and then were being pushed out. The start was strong. Kings got a single whistle several times (I don’t know whether it was an honest whistle or not, but like to think it wasn’t), but we stayed together and pushed just a little harder off the whistles and soon enough were walking away from them. According to FaT live timings, we had pushed them away to two lengths by The Plough, and they fell away further along the reach. We picked it up a little under the railway bridge to entertain the men’s boats who were marshalling. We were pleased with our row over.

Rowing over meant we were sandwich boat. To be honest, we expected to row over again at the bottom of the first division: we were chasing Selwyn again, and they were chasing the spooning Tit Hall. And the overbump onto Churchill looked unlikely as they were chasing St Cats. We knew we had to go ridiculously hard off the start if we were to have any chance of catching Selwyn, so we did. Unfortunately, that just meant messiness. In any case, Selwyn caught Tit Hall before the motorway bridge, although we had gained on them a little. We chased the overbump, but didn’t believe that we had the ability to catch it, having already raced 2k. Even so, coach Mark wouldn’t let us wind it down (which had been in the race plan), so we kept going at race pace. Eventually we crossed the finish line.

We were happy with our races today, with them going exactly as we expected. Tomorrow, we need to push off King’s again to row over at the top of division 2, and then bump Tit Hall to cement our place in the Women’s first division. That would be a perfect end to my years with MECBC.

Sally-Anne Bennett

From the moment we got the boat out we had our game faces on. W2 and W3 had already bumped and we wanted to make it a clean sweep for MECBC. On the row down we pushed hard onto Fitz, leaving plenty of water between us and Magdalene- we were definitely winning on the psychological warfare front!

We got off to a bit of a panicked start because of some confusion with the countdown, but eventually settled into our rhythm and gradually crept up on Magdalene. It was not too long before we got one whistle but then seemed to be stuck there. We could hear that Magdalene were pushing up on King’s and knew that we had to make a move or row over. We were gaining more and more whistles but by the time we got to continuous whistles, Magdalene were pretty close to bumping King’s. However, we were determined to not have to row over and finally hit their boat- pretty hard!!

Hopefully tomorrow we can bump King’s and break into the first division.

Maria Rust

Having been training in a squad system from the start of term due to exam disruptions, the W1 crew entered in Head to Head had not been able to row as an VIII before the race. Given the experience of most of our crew members however, we were confident on pushing out that this would not be a problem, and tried to use the row-up to our marshalling station to get used to the new crew and crew order.
Being one of the earlier crews to arrive, marshalling was slightly stressful for Georgie, particularly since we were stuck next to a barge and unable to be pulled into the bank. When the time finally came for us to set off for the short row up to the start, we focussed on trying to find a good rhythm before taking the rate up under the bridge to begin the race.
We struggled to settle into something good however, and, half-way down the reach, a crab forced us to stop the boat. Picking up the rate again with a vigorous re-start, we were eager to make up for lost time, but again found it difficult to reach a powerful rhythm we could maintain for the rest of the course.
Upon reaching the finish line at the motorway bridge, we knew that we had not rowed to our usual standard, and, having received some feedback on how we could try to make it better by Lorenzo and Ying, hoped that we would be able to improve for the return race.
Unfortunately however, the return row suffered from the same rushed rhythm as that on the way up (apologies from the stroke seat!), and we ended the race fairly unimpressed with how we had performed. When results were out, it turned out that we had come joint fourth in our division (Mays 2nd).
But, on the bright side, we beat Magdalene W1 (who we will be chasing in bumps) by 40 seconds, and given that this was the first race of term, we’ve still got weeks of training to settle as a crew. There’s no doubt that next time we WILL be better!

Emma Jones, Stroke.

On this very bright day, we got to the boathouse to find W2 and W3 all greenery-ed, taking crew pictures and enjoying their victory – pressure got a bit higher, we wanted this last bump so badly, and we knew it was in us!

We had a strong row up in the sun, with a kick-ass practice start! Parked at station 12, Coach Mark gave his last advices, and we got ready for the count down, under the scrutiny of the College’s president.

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, … GUN! Off we got, with a strong powerful start, determined not to let LMBC catch up on us at any point, and focused on the bump we were rowing towards. We got our 1st whistle before the Motorway Bridge, spirits got lifted, and so did our beloved Octopussy. Pembroke, in for Spoons, was determined to hold us off and we knew we’d have to grind them down. The rhythm never really stabilized, as we were pushing harder and harder, stroke after stroke, eager to hear the next whistles:

“Push for the President!”.
“Push for all those spectators cheering and screaming!”
Three whistles!
“Push harder, stronger!”

Finally, continuous whistles! The boat got faster, and sitting at 2, I started seeing the tip of Pembroke’s stern in my peripheral vision. Race faces on, we got angrier, and before I knew it, my blade was on their stern!

“AND BOOOOM: WE STRIKE AGAIN!” (I thought)

We pulled in at First Post Corner, and Mark got deforestating one last time for this Lent Campaign. The beloved greenery in our hair, we rowed back blissfully.

I cannot tell whether it is because it is my first Bumps campaign, or if it simply is happening to every rower, but bumping makes me freaking ecstatic (it happens to all of us. The editor.), and I have been all pumped up for the past three nights! Today was especially fantastic, with the sun out, and all those people gathered on the bank to cheer. It was also a beautiful race, one that my muscles will remember, that’s for sure. We unleashed the fire (Christina’s coxing calls are pretty amazing), and gave Pembroke all we had.

To finish off, I think it is also important to recognize how much good Lent Bumps as done to MECBC: we all come out stronger, as a unified boat club. There has been some intense crew- and boat club-bonding going on & our Facebook group has never been so active, with all those motivational speeches, playlists, and pictures!

This calls for a song.

“It might seem crazy what I’m ’bout to say
Sunshine’s here, you can take a stroke!
— that being said, we’d take it anyway if it was raining/snowing etc
— nothing stops us

[…]

Because Imma boatie
Smack your blade if you feel like bumping is the truth
Because Imma boatie
Row along if you know what rowing means to you
Because Imma boatie
Row along if you feel like that’s what you wanna do”

Well, I am HAPPY, and I will now proceed to some happy dance moves!

Laurane Saliou

We rowed up in the cold and wet, knowing that the bump was in us – just as long as nothing ahead got in our way. And even if it did, the overbump was an option. Marshalling was miserable, but that’s not the important thing in bumps. As Emma H says “It was raining? Really? Didn’t notice cause we were a little busy”.

The gun went off and we got off to racing with a strong, balanced start. King’s got a hopeful whistle on us, but we soon pulled away from them and I watched Peterhouse close and bump. In the meantime, we got a whistle on Maggie and they got one on Queens. Then Queens bumped Pembroke and we knew we had the whole course to wind LMBC in. We ground them down slowly, always inching closer. We were on a whistle, then two-thirds of a length, then two whistles, then three whistles (it took much, much longer than that in the actual race). Finally, we had continuous and that quickly became a bump as we went into Ditton.

As Mark said, that was the first MECBC bump in 5 years of the ‘just grind them down’ type (I think that means he was proud of us!) and as Reana says, “BUMP, BUMP! That was, without a doubt, my best ever bumps race“.

Sally-Anne Bennett, 7

If yesterday hadn’t gone quite to plan, then today went even better than planned. Everything today just felt right. Ok well, there was the moment when 4 numbered off and then realised that actually she hadn’t put her blade in her gate…Minor details, everything else was right! Rowing up to the Lock we engaged in some serious psychological sparring with our boathouse-mates, making it very clear that we had no intention of letting them catch us today.

Then came the cannons. Four-minute cannon, check gate and footplate. One-minute cannon, check again. And BANG! Nerves disappeared, because now we were racing. After a strong start we quickly settled into a smooth, solid rhythm. The first whistle came about half way down First Post Reach, roughly where we hoped to hear a whistle. From one whistle to two always feels like a long slog, but the calls of “3/4 length” then “2/3 length” from the bank provided encouragement. And then it all happened in a blur. Two whistles, became three whistles and then continuous whistles at such speed and rowing in the bow I could suddenly see purple out of the corner of my eye. And as Christina steered us around the start of First Post Corner we did it – MECBC W1 BUMPED KING’S W1!!

Rowing back with greenery in our hair and huge smiles on our faces even the sudden downpour on the Reach wasn’t going to dampen the spirits of W1. And tomorrow? Tomorrow we chase LMBC W1 again. And you know what? I quite like greenery in my hair…

Emma Heydon, Bow

W1 had an interesting row-up to the marshalling point, with two very kind subs filling in for Reana and myself, as we were busy coxing/bank-partying for W3. We jumped in at the P&E and had a strong practise start under the Railway Bridge, then settled into some good paddling up to the start.

Just as we heard the first cannons we were slightly worried at the amount of wind, but this did not phase us. Our start was solid and controlled, and we quickly gained a whistle on LMBC W1. An unfortunate crab meant that we lost the advance we had, but we managed to refocus and crept back up towards Maggie. Round the corners we sat up and pushed harder, determined to get the whistles back. However, as we passed the Plough it was clear that LMBC had caught up to King’s in front of them and had bumped out.

After having to stop because a crew failed to clear the river ahead of us, we did a quick restart, and were soon flying down the Long Reach. Although by this time we knew it was going to be a row-over for us, we did not give up, and kept powering through to the finish, spurred on by Christina’s calls for aggression.

Spirits were high when we pulled in at the boathouse : although we didn’t catch LMBC, we had a good race and it felt like we couldn’t have pushed harder. I look forward to three more successful races with this great crew.

Laura Désert, Stroke

Map with helpful tips on where to watch the races, and where you can and can’t cycle.

MECBC have three boats on for Lent Bumps this year. W1 is a mix of familiar and fresh faces, who made a strong showing at Newnham Short Course placing 4th of all womens’ crews in very windy conditions. Let’s see how much they have come on since then! W2 and W3 has had a very interrupted term, full of flags, flooding, wind and subbing… but all the erging has paid off in the getting on race, with both securing a spot in Bumps. In the week ahead they will show that they are faster, stronger and tidier than the other crews around them. For many this will be their first set of Bumps and they are SO excited!

As per usual not all crews will race every day from Tuesday to Friday. See schedule below for details. Aim to arrive before the start of the race as some races can be very short (several minutes!)

Tuesday 25 February
W2 and W3 racing in women’s third division at 1440

Wednesday 26 February
W2 and W3 racing in women’s third division at 1440
W1 racing in women’s first division at 1600

Thursday 27 February
W1 racing in women’s first division at 1600

Friday 28 February
W2 and W3 racing in women’s third division at 1320
W1 racing in women’s first division at 1600

Saturday 1 March
W2 and W3 racing in women’s third division at 1320
W1 racing in women’s first division at 1600

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