Christ's College

The women’s boat club had a remarkably successful Easter term, starting with a win for W1 in the first race of term, The Radegund Mile. This set up the crew for a term of domination, going on to win both the Head to Head and Head of the Cam, and coming a close second in the last major race before May Bumps, Champs Eights Head. W1 benefitted from two rowers returning from a year with CUW. In turn, our W2 crew was filled with strong, keen girls who posted some of the fastest times for a college second boat in the races mentioned, and most certainly faster than their rivals in their division of the Bumps. Happily, both crews fulfilled the promise they had shown throughout term, with W2 moving up a division on their first day of racing, and bumping on each subsequent day to gain their blades. W1 faced a hard first day against a First and Third crew who pulled out their best performance of the term so far, and held us until halfway down the reach, notably the furthest many in the crew had ever rowed in a Bumps race! For the remainder of the week the bumps came sooner, and a final bump on Girton on the Saturday secured our blades. This put Christ’s W1 crew in the highest position that they have ever been in the Mays Bumps charts, with all eyes fixed on continuing this success in the Fairbairn Cup this term.

To that end, Christ’s rowers re-congregated in Cambridge a week before term started to start our terms rowing with the Michelmas training camp. Despite a few setbacks due to lack of coxes and injured rowers the women managed to fill an eight and get out on the water, after a long summers absence! Despite this apparent lack of rowers, more appeared at the beginning of term, and for the first time in many years (perhaps ever?!) the women’s boat club is fielding two Fairbairn’s crews; an eight and a four, which I am extremely proud of. The benefit of the extra water time at the beginning of term was demonstrated early on, in our first race, the Autumn Head. W2 came a respectable 6th place in their division (3rd college crew, for some inexplicable reason two CUW crews and one City crew were also entered in the college division), notably beating a FaT boat and two Downing boats. W1 also got off to a fantastic start, finishing as fastest college W1 crew over the 2.6km course, being beaten (sometimes only narrowly) by 8 CUW crews, who we technically feel were racing in the wrong division: there is still a bit of angst at the club that they ‘stole’ our pots! It was still encouraging to finish ahead of crews such as FaT and Clare W1 though, especially as Clare had been following us down the course. Pleasingly we also managed to take a fair bit of distance out of the Emma crew that we were chasing, and looking over at the finish line to see their stern was certainly encouraging. Peterborough weekend was an excellent chance to interact with our newest recruits to the boat club, and some intense training was interspersed with some more light hearted racing against the novice crews.

The next focus of term was swiftly upon us however, and it took the form of Uni IV’s, in which the first boat was split in two, and three crews were fielded in total. Again, some superb results were achieved. Our W3 crew had a strong first race in which they really benefitted from having had a good deal more time in a four that their competitors and a strong, technical row took them over the line a fair way ahead of Trinity Hall W2. Unfortunately they faced tougher competition in the semi-final, coming up against Emma W2. They still managed to keep composed however, putting in a solid row and pushed hard for the whole race. W1 got a stroke of luck for the first round, with Peterhouse W1 scratching on the Monday before racing. That left us expecting a race on the Wednesday against Pembroke W1, who subsequently also scratched. We started to wonder if we would carry on unchallenged to the final, but ran out of luck on the Thursday, when Emma W1 turned out to race us. Having not had much time in the four prior to the races, we went into it a little nervous, and were delighted to be up off the start. Unfortunately, they got the better of us, and we lost our lead coming under the railway bridge and didn’t have the confidence in our ability to ever regain it. All in all it was a shame that we didn’t get the opportunity to race the earlier rounds.

Our most impressive result of the week came from W2 (the second half of W1), who won the whole of the second division, beating FaT W2, Downing W2 and Emma W2 in a series of increasingly difficult races across the week. Special mention must go to all those scientists who missed practicals and lectures to race! A tense final with Emma W2 saw Christ’s down off the start, and then pull away in a confident manner to over a length of clear water. This lead proved vital when their stroke girl, Lucy Boulding, caught a crab, about 300m from the finish. The (enormous) bank party waited with baited breath as she struggled to retrieve her blade, but a solid and calm finish to the race saw them steam over the line as if nothing had occurred! A truly incredible achievement. We’re now taking the experience gained in fours and are back training in an eight (and a four), ready for Winter Head and, ultimately, the Fairbairn Cup!

Fran Knight (Women’s Captain)