The men’s 1st VIII had an unfortunate start to the racing season with the cancellation of Head of the River for the second year running. This was not the outcome we had wanted. We were looking to put in a strong performance, despite having to call in two substitute rowers at the last minute, one coming all the way from Derbyshire on his birthday. However with the boat half full of water by the time we came under Hammersmith Bridge and the waves showing no sign of relenting, it was understandable they were forced to cancel the event.

Trinity term started on a better note with the 1st VIII putting in lots of mileage on both the Isis and the Radley stretch on weekends. In the build up to Eights, we had organized a fixture against Green Templeton 1st VIII over the 1km stretch at Radley. Off the start we moved ahead swiftly and continued to extend our lead, finally crossing the line more than 2 lengths up and with a new UCBC record.

The first day of Eights started with bow seat shearing the backstay off during the warm up paddle, leading to a frantic repair on the start line. Thankfully it was fixed in time and resulted in a solid row over with Wolfson never coming closer than a length off us before they were caught by Magdalen.

Thursday we had Magdalen behind us, we started well but as we neared the gut they were moving closer, and by the exit, a swift tap on our stern and we unfortunately had to concede.

Friday saw us line up with Trinity behind. Another strong start saw us through Donny Bridge, and a huge push caught them by surprise and we started to move towards Magdalen ahead of us. Unfortunately, despite the valiant effort, they too caught us at the exit of the Gut, with our cox receiving a large smack on the back from their bowman’s blade. On Saturday we had Wolfson behind and they put push after push to try and gain on us, but we fought them off with a strong row over to finish our Eights campaign 6th on the river.

I look forward to a year as Captain, and would like to thank Friends of UCBC for their donations to which we are extremely grateful. I would also like thank our coach Oliver Collins for his expertise over the last year.

Tom Everitt
Men’s Captain 2014-2015

Crew

• M1 Summer Eights 2013/2014 (8+)
• M1 Head of the River 2013/2014 (8+)

Posted on Aug 15, 2014

posted under: FoUCBC Newsletter

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