News

This term the size of the men's section was doubled with respect to previous years' Michaelmas terms through the addition of a Third Men's VIII, which was also the first Peterhouse senior VIII entered into the Fairbairn Cup Races since 2003's joint PBC/CKBC crew.

The Second Women’s IV started out as a low commitment boat, with an aim to have fun rowing; the term “Gentlemen’s Boat” does not exactly apply, but the spirit of the name is accurate. When we decided to enter Fairbairns, we realised that we had to take our training more seriously, pushing harder with the outings than before and doing some land training. We were unlucky with injuries and University commitments, such that we had to draft in substitutes from the Lower Boats Officers, who had not been rowing, but the race looked set to go ahead with some last minute outings.

The lycra kit order had arrived in time for Fairbairns and the first VIII looked resplendent in their matching PBC attire. The crew was determined to lay to rest the ghost of their performance in Clare Novices and the day started with everyone in a positive frame of mind, the words of Al Pacino’s inspirational speech from the film Any Given Sunday ringing in their ears. The first indication we got that things weren’t going to go our way was when the Darwin boat in front went off straight into the bank at the start. Putting this distraction out of their minds, the crew achieved an excellent start, working within themselves but putting plenty of run on the boat.

On Thursday 29th November, Peterhouse Boat House was teeming with eight of our Novice women and their Novice coxswain, excitedly preparing for their Fairbairns NW1 race in the (unexpected!) early morning sunshine. After seeing off our NM1 counterparts, we quickly set about cleaning our boat, Greta, in the hope that she would bless those that rowed in her with good Fairbairns fortune!

Those rowing that morning were (from stroke to bow): Elena Hernandez-Merino, Nicole Spann, Rebecka Ahl, Elizabeth Mooney, Eva Steiner, Rachel Clark, Christina Millar and Kate Hatcher. Their much-loved coxswain was Lisa Mullins.

The Second Novice Women actually managed to beat the First Novice Women in this race, due to the two crews being fairly evenly balanced in terms of strength. The Second Women had difficulty finding their rhythm though, and a couple of crabs slowed them down further. Nevertheless, the determination shone through and, with the help of what can only be described as battle cries from the six seat, they finally found their rhythm. A massive push off the Railway Bridge brought the boat speed right up to see them finish in style. It was disappointing to come in 48th, but there were some good individual performances from some strong rowers who will hopefully continue rowing next term and beyond!

The novice men’s section were just short of enough men for a second novice men’s VIII, so we decided to enter a IV racing for time only instead. Owing to various commitments the crew had only been able to row together once before the race, so the Fairbairns course was always going to be challenging. Despite their inexperience, the second men rowed the course well and they were quicker than Downing II and Wolfson IV, both VIIIs!

Given the promising performance of the novice men at Winter Head, everyone was keen to see how they would perform in Clare Novice Regatta. The novice men were a little unlucky in drawing Caius A for their race, but the mood was still optimistic at the start. Just into the start sequence stroke caught a crab which caused significant difficulties and Caius were able to pull away from us. The crew recovered, however, and they were quickly gaining on Caius. Unfortunately, an extremely severe crab caught by seven meant the boat had to stop and start again, destroying the gains that had been made on Caius. The men rose to the challenge and were soon gaining on Caius, but there was not enough river left to catch them. The result was a disappointing one for the novice

Our first round was versus Trinity Hall First Novice Women. Our girls got off to an incredible start, increasing their lead on every stroke until disaster struck: stroke’s blade came out of the gate! In the time it took to sort it out, Tit Hall gained a lead of around 4 lengths and it looked as if all was lost. Peterhouse came storming back off their second start however, and were gaining ground fast. When they had drawn level and were starting to take the lead again, the Tit Hall cox took an interesting racing line, steering straight into the bank to give Peterhouse an easier win than they were anticipating! Peterhouse deservedly won by some lengths with strong tidy rowing all the way.

The novice crews' first races in the Clare Novice Regatta on Saturday 24th November are detailed below:

Crew	Race Time
Novice Men's VIII	08:40
Novice Women's VIII	09:30

The course starts at Ditton and finishes at Morley's Holt. If you want to watch the races the best view is probably from the meadow side of the Long Reach.

Full details on the Clare BC website.

After a slightly disappointing start to the term in the Uni IV's, M2 had put in some mileage on the land and water to improve their results. The conditional were ideal to prove ourselves a slight head wind with crews around us who were equal or better than us on paper.