Division : Mays 1st

Conditions: Overcast with a semi - fast stream

Times - Downstream Leg: 6:06 (Downing 6:08, LMBC 6:23)

               Upstream Leg: 6:58 (Downing 7:12, LMBC 7:10)

Result : Fastest crew out of all divisions on the day.

Having spent the first 2 weeks of term doing technical excercises, we only had one opportunity on the Thursday preceding the Saturday race to practice starts and high rate pieces. These had gone well but we were still apprehensive as to how we would be performing relative to our other main competitors. Unfortunately, unexpectedly and at the last minute both FaT and Jesus scratched, so we were unable to see an early term indicator of their boat speeds.

First Leg: the downstream leg started well, hitting an easy 36 off the start and settling down to around 33. We held our start split until the end of the reach. Out of Ditton we lost a bit of boat speed along with a couple of pips rate, and the rhythm started to go. Into grassy the boat had shortened up a fair bit and it was only a big push out of First Post that sat the boat back up and really allowed us to start applying our power. We held this strong pace right up to the finish, with a responsive final push. However, even after a strong start and finish, we were unsure how we would compare due to our weak middle section.

Second Leg: after about a 15 minute break, we started the second leg of the piece. Into quite a strong stream, and on the back of the last 2km, the boat was visibly moving a bit slower. However, after a scrappy first few strokes the platform came and allowed us to row a good FP reach. Again, through the gut we lost rate and speed, as loss of platform and people getting tired hit in together. The push out of Grassy was thus weak, but we sat up and settled it into Ditton. Out of Ditton a strong push call got a fantastic response, as the crew realised they were nearly there. This gave the boat a good platform for about 1/2 the reach before it started cracking again. A final push of 10 saw the rate come up and the split plummet as the boat speed really improved.

Post race thoughts were average, everyone knew that there were strong patches and weak patches. The general feeling was that we probably had resulted a top 4 finish. The final result was met with great enthusiasm by the crew, as 16s and 29s leads over our two closest rivals (in this race) was a fantastic result for the race we felt we had rowed.

Let's get even faster.

http://www.cityrc.co.uk/Events/WinterH2H/Results/2010/H2H_results_2010_by_time.pdf

http://cambridgetab.co.uk/sport/queens-rule-supreme-on-river/