The first race of the year proved to be a solid row for the Fellows' Boat. Taking the course at a steady rate 29, we completed the course in 9:56 (19 seconds behind our M1) and we're looking forwards to picking up our pots :)
Autumn Head 2009-10
17th October 2009
Men's 1st VIII Fairbairns 2009-10
Women's 1st VIII Fairbairns 2009-10
Event:
Autumn Head Autumn Head 2009 took place on Saturday 17th October 2009. Christ's entered their M1, W1 and W2 IV crews. The Fellows boat also rowed under the Champion of the Thames banner.
You can find race reports below.
CRA Open Senior Colleges
5
9:37
With not much water time at the beginning of the term, M1 went into this race a little short of preparation, and in a different boat, as the Bill Windham was still in the process of being re-rigged. We also set ourselves a voluntary rate cap at rate 30, prioritising a better technical row over a quicker time at this early stage in the year.
Despite these handicaps, we found a nice rhythm off the start, settling onto rate 30 as planned. This was maintained by a series of pushes through the corners. Unfortunately, as we tired coming onto the reach we lost sight of our technical goals and the Queens' boat behind us closed considerably. However, the crew pushed on hard after the railway bridge to finish strongly.
Although the time and placing were not brilliant, we achieved our aims of a solid technical row, on a nice rhythm at rate 30. We have plenty more training through term, and a couple of extra pips in rate, to allow us to make up ground on our competitors through term.
Women's Senior VIII's
9
10.47 (fastest college W1 crew)
A slightly wobbly practice start on the reach on the row down was followed by some comfortable paddling, leaving us prepared for our first race of term. It being the first race, we weren’t sure quite what to expect from other crews, so just aimed to go out and have a ‘chunky’ row, achieving the ratio that we’d been working on in training, at high rate. We set off with possibly the splashiest start in history, and settled down to rate 31/32, which was held consistently for the course. A really strong rhythm in the Gut was cemented by a push for 10, leading us around Grassy. Power and balance were lost slightly in Plough reach, but as we rounded Ditton our place in the draw really started to help. We were chasing Emma W1, and had Clare W1 to push off. Emma had been out of sight until we got onto the reach, and some great motivational calls from Scott focused us on the task of grinding them down. Some strong pushes helped us to achieve this, however, tiredness kicked in just after the P and E, with the balance really suffering. Nevertheless we managed to finish well, practically having overlap on Emma (having, according to our awesome bank party, taken about 8 lengths out of them) and comfortably ahead of Clare. Although we weren’t category winners, due to CUW’s many crews, it’s still a fantastic start to the terms racing, and testament to the hard work put in during training.
