Christ's College

Cardinals Regatta 2009 happened on 12th March. There was a Christ's/FaT/Pembroke composite Medics crew entered. Organised by Vin Shen Ban.

1st round:Beat Fitz movie stars by 1 length

Having never rowed together as a crew before, this was probably the race which everyone was most nervous about. Our row down (after a mild panic abh trying to find a sub for a missing person) was surprisingly good. The bribes started the moment we spun round ditton, with Mark sacrificing 2 packets of jelly babies to negate Fitz's attempt on a headstart. We wound to quite a high rate and even on the stride, the rate didn't drop much and it wasn't until around the bend on the reach that we really started to pull away from them

2nd round: Beat Newnham animals by 2 lengths

There was an immense amount of pain on my inside arm after the 1st race due to us using W2's blades(!) So for the rest of the day I switched to a wide grip. Being Newnham, they were given a length's head start but we quickly caught up and took another length off them before we wound it down slightly and held them there to the line.

Division Final (Quarter finals): Beat Tit Hall penguins by 5 lengths

On the row down from the boathouse, we were held up by a really slow Tit Hall iceberg carrying penguins. So we knew we could beat them and after our usual manic high rate start, we basically wound it down to 30, which resulted in probably our best row of the day. This also broke my record of not ever having rowed past 3 rounds.

Semi finals: Beat Hughes Hall octagenarians by half a length

Having gone so far into the regatta, we suddenly realized we could actually win Cardinals and so the plan was to not stride until we were at least a length ahead. This proved to be crucial as we were pretty much level with our opponents until they strode and we then started to walk away from them. Jij is actually crazier than I am in terms of rate work!

Final: Beat Jesus (including a ninja turtle) by half a length

The final race consisted of the two crews racing in opposite directions from the kink, spinning at a set distance from the start (set by the marshalls), and then racing back to the kink. The first to cross the kink won.

Jesus suggested that we used this format of racing (as was noted in the race rules). Some of us wanted to race a regular race but upon realizing that the Jesus boat consisted of pretty much this term's M1/W1, we thought our chances were probably best in a unconventional racing format. Since they had the say on the format, we got to choose the direction first.

From the go, we pushed as hard as we could at 39 knowing it was only 250m. The easy+spin was a rather interesting maneuver especially with bowside attempting to do it at race pace while strokeside could hardly move their blades in the water. Jesus appeared to have reached and spun before us, but as we were heading off again, they were still spinning.

So the dash to the line, despite a crab by Jij, saw us cross the victory line by about half a boat length before jesus.

Many thanks to Fran Knight and Justus Kebschull for subbing in at the last minute