Crew
Cox: Chris Clark
Stroke: Tom Bury
7: Mark Varley
6: James Edgley (c)
5: Alex Duncomb
4: Henry Cathcart
3: Helge Dietert
2: Fernando Bravo
Bow: Jack Amey
Coach: Charlie Adams Day 1 - Rowed over
With all the chaos from the term it was hard to tell how we measured up to the crews around us. Bedford was cancelled due to the weather and we were unable to do any sparring because of the erratic changing of the flag, so sitting on the start line on day one, anything could have happened. As it so happened Queens’ M1 did what they do best and rowed over with Downing ahead bumping Caius to gain headship, and behind us Jesus bumped FAT before first post corner. Our row over wasn’t particularly elegant but it got the job done keeping LMBC at a comfortable distance behind. We were still third on the river!
Day 2 - Bumped by Jesus
After seeing Jesus decapitate FAT in under a minute we knew we had to improve our performance drastically from the first day if we wanted to hold our podium position. We got off to a great start holding them off at a length by the time of our stride. Not going to lie, the race was over pretty quickly after that. Jesus pushed up on us extremely fast. We tried to respond but we just could not match the power they had in the boat and the inevitable happened half way down the gut. At least we made it further than FAT.
Day 3 – Bumped by LMBC
LMBC also bumped FAT extremely quick and we knew we had another difficult row ahead. We got off to a sensational start holding station with LMBC behind and Jesus in front. Keeping them at a length coming into grassy 4th place was all to play for. We took a good line round grassy but still lost about half a boats length. Quickly bringing the boat up to race pace out the corner we hit a strong rhythm and kept LMCB at bay. Just outside the plough LMBC put in a huge push to try and take us down. They got to within inches of our stern but no closer. Zigzagging around and giving it everything we had we held them off going into Ditton. Unfortunately they managed to get their bows down the inside round the corner and from then on it was game over. We put in a great rowing performance and showed great fighting spirit. Who knows if we had managed to hold them off round that last corner we might have been able to hold them off to the finish.
Day 4 – Bumped by Pembroke
Having put in such a good performance against a very strong LMBC crew we had a lot of positives to take into the next race against Pembroke. Again they caught FAT extremely quickly but we knew if we put in a good performance we could have them. Once again we put in a great start keeping Pembroke at station. Our performance went downhill from here. We were putting a lot of check on the boat and we could not find that efficient cruising speed. As a result Pembroke just steadily ate into the gap and bumped us on Ditton corner. If we had put in the same performance we did against LMBC no doubt we would have walked away from that fairly average Pembroke crew and it was a shame to end the campaign on such a disappointing note. Being 6th on the river is still isn’t though.
The fall from grace is a difficult pill to swallow but we shall use this experience to our advantage as extra motivation to train even harder for the all-important May Bumps and Henley Regatta.
James Edgley, Queens’ College Boat Club Men’s Captain 2013-2014