May Bumps 2008 - 2nd Women's VIII
Summary
Up 3 places by bumping Clare Hall II, Sidney Sussex III & Downing III.
Getting on Race
We were unfortunate in the Getting on Race and didn't get on initially. Our training had gone really well and we were feeling confident but several of our grad rowers had to attend conferences during the term so race day was actually the first time all 9 of us had sat in a boat together! Add to this a severely jet lagged rower and an ill rower and we just couldn't pull our best rowing out of the hat on the day. We had a solid, gutsy row but just weren't quite together, and caught a crab in the final few hundred metres of the race to narrowly miss qualifying. We came out as the second fastest non-qualifying crew, and comfortably beat several crews. It was a pretty disappointing result and we were all fairly gutted that after all our training we wouldn't get to row bumps... or so we thought!
My phone rang about ten o'clock on tuesday night - it was Will telling me there had a been a few crews scratching above us and there was a place in mays for us if we wanted it. Queue two hours of making franctic phone calls and...
Wednesday
A very shell-shocked bunch of rowers arrived at the boat house on wednesday morning. We were in the fortunate position of knowing that we had beaten the crew we were chasing by about 20 seconds in the Getting on Race, and were foot of the river so would have no pressure from behind, so we were confident that catching Clare Hall II was an achievable goal.
Despite it having been a while since we rowed we had a reasonably quick and tidy start, and managed to get the first whistle off the start. We kept our cool and consistently gained on them for about 3 minutes until we made contact with Clare Hall about half way along first post reach. We were ecstatic as I'm told this was the first bump Peterhouse W2 have made since 2004 - so a pretty good result all things considered! We collected our greenery and had a tidy row home to prepare for thursday.
Thursday
We were feeling a lot less confident on thursday as we were chasing Sidney Sussex III who we knew had beaten us in the Getting on Race. Although we had a successfult result yesterday we knew the competition was much higher and weren't at all confident we could catch them. We were however a lot more psyched up atbh in the morning (we'd had fair warning this time!). On the row over we got it back together, and found ourselves on similar form to pre-GoR with good boat speed. We had an aggressive start and a row and managed to quickly reel Sidney in and catch them before first post corner - a successful day's racing all in all! Tomorrow we chase Clare III, who pose tougher opposition as they bumped Sidney Sussex III on wednesday.
Friday
After our successes earlier in the week, and the speed with which we had bumped we were fairly confident in our ability to catch Clare III, although it would doubtless take longer. Unfortunately, we were also confident in their ability to catch Downing III pretty quickly. This required an explosive start to try and catch Clare in time. We gained about half a length, falling just shy of the length whistle after our start, but by this point they had multiple whistles and were well on the way to bumping up. They had the motivation to push us back to on station and push on to Downing III to get a very quick bump, leaving us rowing round first post corner with nothing in front to hit. We continued to push hard though, and fought hard for the overbump on Jesus IV. However, they were also chasing down the overbump on Kings II so although we made gains on them, we were still several lengths off at the end of the course. We were left with a gutsy and exhilerating row over which we can be proud of, and a good chance of success tomorrow. An exciting race!
Saturday
We were in the fortunate position on the saturday of knowing we were faster than the boat in front, and disasters aside, could catch them. We set off with a good speed and started gradually gaining on Downing III, getting our first whistle reasonably quickly. As far as we knew, all was well and it was just a matter of time till the bump came. However, bumps being bumps, and there being no saturday rerows, when the boats 3 and 4 in front bumped out, they didn't clear! Clare III were forced to hold it, and Downing III were only a canvas off them when they were able to start rowing again, while we still lagged a length behind. We were moments away from a jump start being called when Clare managed to get it together and pull away from Downing III. We were then able to reap the benefit of the extra sessions in the ergroom, and close the gap and earn the final bump, before pulling into the bank to collect our well-earned greenery, and learn of the drama that had unfolded ahead of us!
All in all, a very successful bumps campaign (especially for a crew who didn't get on!), and the first time a Peterhouse W2 has competed in bumps since Lents 2006.