Lent Bumps 2018 Day 1: The Five Year Plan Continues
Men's 1st VIII
Now into the fifth year of The Great Pilgini's Five Year Plan, (which has already seen a rise of nine places in the Lent Bumps, a 6.3% drop in 2k times and a 13.9% increase in the quality of chat), M1 were looking this year to make further progress up Division 2.
Off the back of CCCBC's first overseas training camp, M1 came into Lent term with a crew made up of four novices, and only three returners from last year's May campaign. In the bows, Santiago "ask me for directions" Dubov is joined by Bailey "relieved to no longer be worst in boat" Brookes. Silas "natural three seat" Hope and Nils "crab specialist" Burger make up the middle of the boat along with Haralds "doesn't do weekends" Abolins and Marcin "beast from the East" Ziarko. Setting the rhythm in our stern pair are Takashi "liability when drunk" Lawson and Mark "liability even when not drunk" Allingham, with the boat being steered by Liz "complain about the cold" Elder.
Despite being relatively inexperienced, M1 had proven that they possess potential with an encouraging display in the Winter Head to Head, which gave us confidence that we could perform well in Lents.
Our week started with the distribution of the long awaited stash order, finally making M1 look like more of a complete crew (even if we can't always row together as one..) Once we had donned the iconic Pelican leggings, we set out for the row down to the marshalling area, for what was, at points, some of our steadiest rowing yet- was this a sign of good things to come?
After the sounding of the one minute cannon we were ready. We came to front stops and awaited the almighty explosion that would signal the start of our race. Upon the blast we accelerated away, composed and in control for all but one quarter of the first drive until 7 seat took a colossal air stroke, upsetting the stability and leading to a unaesthetic take off.
We managed to regain some composure after a shaky start and continued onwards in our quest to make contact with the stern of Jesus II. Surprisingly, we heard our first whistle quite early on before first post corner, but it would be some time (and a crab) until we heard two consecutive whistles indicating that we were half a length from a bump. Unbeknown to those facing backwards, Jesus II had in fact clipped oars with a house boat, killing their speed and lining them up in our path for us to sweep through and claim our first bump of the campaign.
What must have looked like an inevitable easy bump from the bank turned into a rather confusing saga when, despite a significant overlap, the Jesus cox refused to concede defeat-perhaps desperate to redeem their earlier coxing error that had placed them in this situation. Nevertheless, Corpus continued to row hard, and carrying significantly more speed than Jesus, almost drew level side by side with them before they succumbed to the inevitable and the bump was achieved.
Today's bump can, in some ways be said to encapsulate Corpus M1. We may not have looked perfect but we got the job done in the end. With Wednesday being Division 2's rest day, M1 will resume on Thursday placed at 6th, their highest position since 1994, and chasing a Maggie crew who, had it not been for Jesus's error, would have been in trouble themselves from Jesus II, giving Corpus hope that we should be able to catch them and progress further up the lofty heights of the second division.
Women's 1st VIII
On a cold, late February day, nerves were jangling and we were worried about how fast we really were - and how fast we were going to be compared to the crews around us. We rowed down to the start with some of the best rowing we have done all term and with an amazing practise start, we felt that we could achieve something in this race. After a quick turn inside the 4-minute gun, we set off with a good start and quickly saw that Queens W2 behind us would not be keeping up. We didn’t know how close we were to Hughes and there were no whistles indicating that we were within stations, but we kept racing hard around the corners and along the reach. After a bit of a collapse on Ditton corner we fought to gain some ground on the reach, which put even more distance between us and the rest of the division. We pushed all the way to finish with Hughes maintaining their position ahead. The crew fought hard and overall the feeling throughout the team was positive. With Hugh's bumping as the sandwich boat for Division 2, we will have Christ's II to chase tomorrow.