Town Bumps 2014 - Thursday (Day 3)
The penultimate day of the Bumps proved decisive, with many ups and downs,
In brief: Two up, three Down, and a row-over, overall: net down 1, here's the details:
- W3 (row-over): The women of W3 faced a long-row over, after 99's W5 managed to catch the unfortunate Champs W7, this should however provide good prospects for W3 tonight, who will be looking to catch them to make it +3 overall.
- No videos yet...
W2 - After bumping City 8
- M3 (down): Down again on Thursday unfortunately, after being caught by Cambridge Vets at first post corner, however they won't have to worry about being the sandwich boat tonight, should also provide more time at the Beer Tree this evening.
- W2 (Up): Managed to catch City W8 in short order, even before the A14 motorway bridge, and also taking the 2nd Boat back into Division 2
W1 - After taking down Champs 1, at Ditton Corner.
- M2: were down one to X-Press M4 approaching grassy corner, after Cantabs M6 caught Champs M3 ahead of them, scuppering their chances of a Bump.
- W1: managed to get their first long overdue batch of Willow after catching Champs W1 on Ditton Corner. Tonight they'll have a second chance at St Neots, the crew they chased on Tuesday evening, good luck to them!
- M1 (down): No happy ending for M1 on Thursday alas. We had a good start, and not one but two whistles on Tabs into Grassy, and all of that was the plan, but we lacked the oomph to close down the last half length plus the overlap. Which was the bit that wasn’t under our control. We also got a rather wide line round Grassy which shows up clearly in the video; and rowed down Plough Reach in Tab’s puddles which slowed us down (ah, you can even see it in the GPS trace) (um, or do I have to take that back? Perhaps we were just tired? See Jo’s video), unlike Press who picked the other side and gained noticeably: from being merely on station into Grassy they gained to nearly half a length at Ditton. From there its a long way to top finish and we only made it halfway down the Reach. So much for our dreams.
Tactically, we could have rowed a different race: accepted we weren’t fast enough to get Tabs, and backed off. Rowed a more even pace, saved ourselves their puddles, and left Press with ours, whilst leaving ourselves enough margin to keep pushing them away. In retrospect, that would have been wiser. But less glorious.