Cox: Amy Hill, S- Hannah Badger, 7- Anna Feest, 6- Alice Handy, 5- Carly Gilson, 4- Alice Wenban, 3- Abi Smith, 2- Ayesha Holderness, B- Bree Livesey
After a long week of rain W2 were pleased to see that conditions were dry for the race. This certainly boosted our morale, despite the 8:20am meet time!
W2 began their warm-up and headed towards marshalling, only to be met by a busy queue of traffic. Nobody had anticipated quite how congested the river would be - inundated with Cambridge boats and visiting crews. After marshalling by the Green Dragon bridge, we were eventually allowed to paddle up towards the Lock. We practiced a start on the Reach to complete our pre-race warm-up.
Once we had spun at the Lock, the boat was parked along the bank and the crew de-kitted whilst chatting to Emma W2, who had parked alongside.
We waited for Emma W2, who were racing a few boats ahead of us, to push-off before beginning a chunky paddle towards the start-line in preparation for our rolling start. The rolling start was strong and controlled, setting the boat up nicely for the rest of the race, which began under the motorway bridge.
After the start sequence we settled into our rhythm - we battled to maintain a rate 28, but found it consistently increasing back up to rate 32! With some beautiful coxing from Amy we pushed out of the corners, threatened by the pressure of Corpus Christi W1 on our tails. Unbeknownst to us, we were steadily gaining on the two crews in front.
Some strong stroke-side strokes bought us swiftly around Ditton corner, pushing us past the crew in front (King’s College London). Before we knew it, Queens’ had gained on Downing and a strong ‘power 10’ call was all it took to encourage the crew to overtake Downing along the Reach. At the railway bridge, W2 increased the rate to 34 to begin the final sequence, spurred on by our favourite call - ‘bend and send’! The additional pressure from Corpus Christi fuelled our desire to maintain our position as we approached the finish line, ending a strong second half to the race.
The W2 crew ended up winning their division! Fingers crossed this success will continue into the future, as the boat approaches their next challenge - Fairbairns.