News

We rowed down to 99s on a very hot and sunny day. The row down was fairly relaxed, with a nice rhythm established from the start. Our first race was against ARU W1. We got off to a good start and by the end of our start we were already a few seats up. This gave us the confidence to push it on further, reaching clear water before the Railway Bridge. By the finish we had widened the gap to quarter of a length of clear water, a good result. We span and rowed back to the start almost immediately. Our second race was against Newnham W1. Despite a better rhythm off the start, Newnham moved ahead fairly rapidly; they slowly but constantly took a few seats off us every minute, and we ended up at a similar distance behind them as we were ahead in the previous race.

On the 17th of May, W1 raced Champs Eights Head. There was legendary wind the whole week preceding the race, so we were all slightly nervous. However, we knew we were strong enough to cope with a strong head wind and other crews may not be.
Our start outside the Plough was a bit unorthodox, with the umpire starting us before we were even forwards. We coped well and were back on form by the second stroke. Coming into Ditton, we were hit by a massive gust of wind where wind really had no business being. A huge push saw us maintain our boat speed around the corner, where we began our push out.

On Sunday 17th May 2009, the 1st Men's VIII raced in the Champs Head. Despite a tough first half of term with many of the crew being injured and our head coach, Bomber, being ill, we managed to enter the 1st VIII thanks to James McWilliams subbing in.

The crew was determined not to let the problems from the beginning of term overshadow our performance and so we attacked the course and raced it as aggressively as we could. Although not a particularly pretty row, we rated about 33/34 strokes per minute into a strong headwind. Thanks to a strong effort from the crew we finished in a time of 4:57.0, placing us second in the M2 division.

Both 1st VIIIs raced the Champs Head on Sunday, 17th May 2009.

Crew	Category	Time	Ranking in Category	Ranking Overall
M1	M2	04:57.0	2nd	8th
W1	W2	06:17.2	2nd	12th

Full results are available on the Champs Website.

Small Boats Regatta took place during the first week of Lent Term. Matt Harris and Emanuel Malek were entered in the Foster-Fairbairn pairs event, with the course running from the Little Bridge to the Railway Bridge. Our first race as a crew in Michaelmas had seen us struggle with steering, colliding with the bank repeatedly. But after some determined training we were confident we had upped our game enough to be competitive against the modest pool of entrants in Small Boats. On the first day we were being chased by Caius who proved to be strong opponents but when they veered into the bank on the Reach we were in a position to capitalise and reached our finishing post a couple of seconds before they reached theirs.

Three Peterhouse boats will be racing in the Small Boats Regatta running from Monday 20th April until Wednesday 22nd April.

Crew	Boat Type	Event	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday
Harris-Malek	2-	Foster-Fairbairn Pairs	12:45	11:55	12:05
Deacon	1x	Maiden Sculls	No race	08:50/9:50	10:20/11:25
Carpenter	1x	Bushe-Fox Freshmann Sculls	No race	10:55	12:10

The event is a knock-out competition run in a 2-boat chase format over a course starting at the Little Bridge and finishing at the Railway Bridge. The Maiden Sculls are a side-by-side Regatta over 500m on the Long Reach. The best place to watch is likely to be the meadow side of the Long Reach. Please take care not to disturb or impede bank stearers.

See the CUCBC website for more details.

Good luck to all the competitors!

Left with the bitter taste of a disappointing Bumps result, M1 were eager to prove themselves at the Head of the River Race. Despite one of the rowers from the Lents VIII not being able to make the race and illness plaguing the rowers up until two days before the HoRR, the crew pressed on and prepared as well as they could for the race.
Thanks to the experience of having raced the Tideway in 2008, we were confident that we could execute the race plan over the entire 6.8km of the Championship Course. After having watched (and studied) the top crews go off it was our turn to show what we could do.

On Saturday 7th March, W1 raced The Women's Eights Head of the River Race. An overall time of 22:00.7 saw us move up 100 places from our starting position to finish 190th overall.
On the morning of the race, after some impressively speedy rigging, we had plenty of time to people watch and try to see how many crews had managed to put their riggers on upside down or back to front. After some discussion about the best way to affix our number to the boat, we began the queue to boat.
Starting at number 290 meant we had plenty of time marshaling on the Thames before the race to get used to the immense stream and choppier water.

The 1st Men's VIII entered the Head of the River Race on Saturday, 21st March 2009.

Crew	Category	Time	Overall Ranking	Ranking in Category
M1	S4	19:34.6	177th	13th/85