Another week, another race. This time the City winter Head to Head: 2k downstream, bridge to bridge, followed by a brief respite and then 2k in the more normal upstream direction. A lovely sunny day, with a light headwind coming back. The draw is here and the results (read ‘em and weep) are here. For us, see below. Times are: out; back; total (raw) and total (with masters adjustment).

Div 1 131 Chesterton RC Novice Women's 8 CRA Novice Women's 8+ (0:10:09.00:09:55.60:20:04.60:20:04.6)

Div 1 136 Chesterton RC Senior Women's Four CRA Club Women's 4- (DNS)

Div 1 140 Chesterton RC Harry Bulstrode Masters B Men's 1x (0:08:47.00:09:11.80:17:58.80:17:49.8) (vid)

Div 2 214 Chesterton RC Men's Mas D 4x Masters D Men's 4x- (0:08:16.40:08:39.60:16:56.00:15:56.0)

Div 2 215 Chesterton RC Mas D Women's Quad Masters D Women's 4x- (0:08:48.30:09:10.90:17:59.20:16:58.2) (vid)

Div 3 313 Chesterton RC Roberts Masters E Mixed 4x- (0:09:04.80:09:29.50:18:34.30:17:02.3) (vid)

Div 3 314 Chesterton RC Burgess CRA Club Men's 1x (0:08:23.10:08:42.80:17:05.90:17:05.9)

Conor is still winning the Burgess-Bulstrode deathmatch, despite Harry’s most feared opponent - the bank opposite First Post - proving no obstacle this time. We (men’s master’s) won “fastest Quad of the day” for which alas there is no prize; entries look to have been somewhat on the thin side, to me.

City were fastest overall, beating Caius by a mighty 0.5 of a second in 0:12:56.4. Which - for a 2 x 2km course - is a 1:37 split. Argh: City revised their timings, I think only for div 4 - see at end.

Caius were fastest overall in 12:55. Which - for a 2 x 2km course - is a 1:37 split.

The Pesky Quad: Anne, Paul, Katherine and Simon

By roving reporter Anne.

I always love a head to head race as it feels likes two races for the price of one. And almost without fail, we always comment that the second leg went better than the first leg as we were actually warmed up properly. Not being in a crew for this event, I tentatively asked around for a doubles partner and was delighted when Katherine said yes. Fortunately, presumably over quiet cups of tea somewhere, Katherine and Simon came up with the better plan of rowing in a quad with Paul making up the fourth. And after one pleasingly smooth and well-balanced outing snatched in the twilight hours of last Tuesday, we headed to the start of the race. Division 3 due to Tishka being used already in Divisions 1 and 2. We weren’t quite as smooth in the race as our outing, due no doubt to race adrenaline and excitement, and the fact that we were rowing in dirty water from the crews ahead. Simon was steering Tishka which he thought responded more quickly to the rudder than the men’s new yellow boat he was more used to. We rated about 28 to 30, but probably rowed our

best at 28. Katherine gave us encouraging coaching from the 2 seat, and I tried to keep the rating at 28 when we started to get a bit excited and messy. Conor had called us the Pesky Quad on Facebook, as we drawn ahead of him at 313 to his 314. However once he had mentioned he was going to row over at a split of sub 2 [Ed.: Conor is good but not that good, he got 2:06 :-)] we decided it might be best if he started ahead of us. Fortunately we didn’t have to overtake anyone and we also didn’t let anyone past us. A City single stayed safely behind us, but did close the gap. Although our raw times were rather average our masters adjustment raised us up the finishing order and gave us all a smile. The day finished as it should with a cake and coffee in Tishka’s.

Note (which I’ll add here since people are appalling at doing this in general, not from secretiveness, just from not thinking clearly…): City got some grief for the Div 4 timings which were hard to understand (“City have changed the times for division four of Winter head2head so much from yesterday. Not just switched the two legs around so that the with/against the stream times make sense with with the other divisions. They've also changed the actual times of each leg quite a lot for all crews compared to the original times they put up. They definitely, massively, botched the timings for division four, more so than just getting the legs mixed up“). They were revised, but the only official announcement of that (AFAIK) is Seb in answer to #Rowbridge9211: “Timing for the event is done digitally using RowClock. However, we also run a backup system using stopwatches (this is more manual but more reliable). After reviewing the times we felt there were issues with the digital timing for Div4 and so replaced the times with the backup system. At the end of the day we want the times to be as accurate as possible. Three people queried times for specific crews and these have all been checked and resolved. I can also confirm that the updated results didn’t impact the winners in each category.”.