And so the pinnacle of the rowing season arrives: town bumps. This year Chesterton has seven crews: three women’s and four men’s, with M4 being the Christ’s Staff, coached by Kate.

Day’s reports in last-first order.

Overall: M1 +1; M2 -2; M3 +2; M4 -1. W1 -3; W2 -3; W3 -3. M3 win the “captain’s blades” prize.

Day 5

Briefly: M1 row-over (vid); M2 technical row-over (vid); M3 row-over (vid); M4 row-over. W1 down (vid), W2 down (vid), W3 nearly up, but alas down (vid).

And then we went to the Waterman and then we went to City. And some of us did silly things.

M1: another good row (GPS) and indeed the GPS has our pratice start at just fractionally under 1:19. And my nerves at least had settled. But nonetheless, somehow, we didn’t hit peak form and the race while good wasn’t good enough; we didn’t get so close to Xpress tonight. Perhaps seeing Nines 3 taken out by City 3 down the Reach removed a certain motivation. But: we’re up one for the week, and the crew was a pleasure to row in.

Day 4 (M4 doesn’t row)

Briefly: M1 (vid) and M2 (vid) row-over; M3 (vid) up; W1 (vid) and W2 down; W3 (vid) row-over.

Day 3 (M3/W3 don’t row)

Briefly: M1 row-over; M2 down; M4 down; W1 and W2 row-over.

M1: (GPS; vid): new practice start record (just over 1:19). Decent real start, the first whistle took longer than last night but the cries of “inside station” from the bank were audible. City 2 bumped out on Nines 2 at Grassy, we closed to half a length around Ditton, probably got overlap down the Reach but not consistently, and alas didn’t manage to close them down. It was quite bouncy. Tomorrow, perhaps, with wash ahead of them too we’ll get the small relative boost required. Elsewhere, City took out Nines for headship.

Day 2 (M2/W2 don’t row)

Briefly: M1 up, M3 and M4 row-over; W3 and W1 down.

M1: (GPS): Excellent paddle down and start (1:20); decent real start and a looong wait for a whistle (entering the Gut I think) then two then three down Plough reach and I think we got a better Ditton and had overlap coming out to bumps at the top of the Reach. Scarily close at First Post / very finely steered by Will. Bumped: Tabs 3, Hills Road. Behind us, as far as I could see, I think Mallory closed on Nines 3 quite quickly to maybe FP, then faded, and were off by Ditton. Ahead, City 2 got Xpress so bring on Wednesday. Vid from Paddock.

Day 1 (M1/W1 don’t row)

Briefly: M4 row-over; M3 up, after a heroic chase of Nines 9 (watch it here!); M2 down, alas, when half a length off Nines 6, caught by the Rad in the gut (vid). W3 and W2 both down.