Hastings and Battle

Next morning I was up before Mike AGAIN and went down for a little walk outside, had a talk to the dogs and had a wonderful cooked breakfast. Met two Australian girls at the breakfast table. It was much cooler and a huge relief. We headed off at about 11 and drove down to the sea dyke we'd passed just before the turn off. Had a walk on the beach and wanted to walk out to the water but after the pebble slope, the sand was slimy and too slippery to walk on. This beach had groynes to keep the pebbles in place. There was a walk on top of the dyke which meant that you could see straight into the backyards of the houses on the other side. One house was a big white box that Mike had seen on TV.

We drove on to Hastings not intending to stop there as there's a tacky seaside resort aspect to it with a crumbling pier. It was surprisingly hilly and the slot machine arcades etc were hideous. Around the corner were more of the grand old Victorian frontages and we stopped for a short walk. It got quite cool in the wind - then the sun came back out. There are groynes on that beach too.

We drove on to Battle and stopped at the Abbey that William the Conqueror built on the spot of his victory in 1066. We got an audio guide thingo and I bought a book about monarchs and about William and the battle. We read about the battle in an exhibition building. There was a long walk that you could do following the action of the battle but Mike didn't want to do that so we did the shorter one from where you could see the valley anyway. I was a bit disappointed because I wanted to walk on the ground where it happened, but it was OK. We stopped a few times to read the information boards and came across the foundations of the chapel where a stone was laid in the ground where the altar had been. Turns out that was the very spot that King Harold had been killed anyway, so I was very happy. We had lunch in the 1066 pub and headed off. Battle is a nice little town.

It was about 3pm by now and we were wanting to go to Brighton but had no time to do it. So we headed back to Seven Kings. Mike's mum cooked us dinner and Mike dropped me at Stratford bus station at 8pm for my bus. The trip back was much better than the trip there though there was a very noisy family sitting near me.

Tunbridge Wells and Rye

The next morning we set off late (waiting for Mike to get out of bed is annoying), about 10am or something, got on the M25, went over the Dartford crossing (huge bridge built over the Thames in 1991) into Kent, and got back off the M25 when traffic congestion started to get painful. We arrived in Royal Tunbridge Wells after about an hour and some intense single lane tourist traffic on its outskirts. We found a car park, checked out the grand old Pantiles shopping precinct (cafes, restaurants, bandstand, Morris dancers) and got some sandwiches on the run. We walked up to the top of the main street, having a look at a really nice park, real estate agents, architecture, some gelato (had been having withdrawal symptoms) and a pet shop (full of illegal species) on the way. We walked back down and it was time to go. Very nice town, but I was disappointed we didn't get time to sample the spring water for which it is famous.

We drove on to a place called Rye in East Sussex (almost on the coast) and passed a Medieval 'fayre' on the way into town and I saw people jousting. We parked, got some info from the tourist office, booked a B&B room for the night and walked back up the town to look at the medieval 'fayre'. The jousting was supposed to go until 5.10 but it had finished by the time we got there just before 5. We had a look around and a little sit down in which Mike went to sleep on a hay bale and I called Liz who had left me a message. We checked out Ypres Tower (part of the castle), Lamb House where Henry James lived and some other fantastic Tudor houses.

  
That was about all we could see in Rye, but it is very nice. We drove on to Fairlight where we were to stay and eventually found the B&B down a bumpy dirt track. It was worth it as the house was beautiful, the view was amazing to the sea and the people were lovely. Apparently Alexander McQueen the designer lives next door. I missed the fox and badger feeding at dusk, but we saw plenty of rabbits.

To Seven Kings

Mike's house is in Seven Kings in the greater area of Ilford (roughly east London). I got off the bus in Stratford on Friday night and was feeling ill after a bad trip. The locals are fairly scary, and I suddenly felt very grateful that I live in Cambridge. It was hot too.

I somehow found the train station and got a train fairly quickly and painlessly to Seven Kings where Mike met me. We drove through some surprisingly un-London-like traffic and came to their street which is a lovely little haven within some pretty ugly city. The houses are all the same in the street, very pretty, semi-detached (damn, should have taken a photo), and they have huge long back yards.

Bumps post script

I’m very glad I rowed in the bumps because I would have kicked myself forever if I hadn’t. It was very interesting to be involved and to have given that last race my all. All the same, it was hard work and put my life on hold for a good two weeks.

I am also glad that I joined the women’s crew. I learnt a lot and my rowing has improved significantly.

Bumps night 4

Through the day I studied photos of us, both on the Jet Photography site and the ones that Becky’s friend James had taken. In all of them it became apparent that everyone but me was twisting towards their blade to get more purchase on the water. This matched what I had seen of the senior crews.

We got the boat in with help from some of City 8. Max came up to me having thought about what I’d said about my catch the previous night and told me I needed to drop the blade in rather than holding it there. I told him that I had started to do that, and move up the slide quicker to catch in time, but what it meant was that my body movements were no longer matching the people in front of me. He rather unhelpfully told me that I’d just have to make them match. Emma gave us a bit of criticism about having given up the night before when we went to half pressure and lower rating while still racing. I spoke up and said that I was completely buggered and just simply couldn’t row at that rate anymore.

We pushed off and rowed up, doing a few starts. Emma had us rowing at a firm but maintainable speed and said we looked very good. I started trying to twist to get more purchase on the water, and it seemed to fix the problem of finishing early. I still had to rush up the slide to catch at the same time as everyone else, but at least I was finishing at the same time.

When we got to the lock, Emma talked us through our strategy, which was to go easier on the start and conserve energy for the chase. This is because we were determined to catch City 6, who’d been bumped down to us. Max had been telling us that bow side had been pulling too hard at the start anyway. We pushed off the bank earlier, at 40, to enable bow and two more time to straighten the boat and to get more length off the chain. This meant that approaching the final gun we were moving towards the bank, which might not have been the intended result. We had a good start and I think we all tried very hard. We did have a lull where everyone got tired, and Anne’s stroke rate went down (meaning we had to follow) but we worked very hard all the way down the course. The bank kept telling us that we were close and Emma was screaming at us to work harder. Kathy snuck two peeks but I didn’t dare. We gave up on the last straight and brought the pressure down. We stopped before the white house and none of us could move any more. Ed was marshalling on the bank and he said that we hadn’t finished yet because our stern hadn’t cleared the white house. Bow and two stroked us over the line and after a few more minutes we continued past the railway bridge. We pulled in to offload Max, who said he was proud of us. Danielle jumped in the cox’s seat.

It took ages for City 8 to come through and I thought they’d been bumped. Finally they came through decorated with greenery, having bumped Radegund 3.

We pushed off just in front of them, and rowed back. All the pressure was off and we rowed rather haphazardly, going into the greenery on one bank, and then into a boat on the other side. City 8 were following us, and even with 4 of them rowing to our 6, they were moving faster. We got the boat out with the help of Canadian Angela et al because City 8 took too long. Becky and Vicky wiped the boat down and I washed it with the hose while everyone else helped Angela with her boat.

City 8 was going up to the beer station near the Pike and Eel and then on to watch the races. I went up with Danielle and Vicky again, Danielle bought us ice creams (must buy her a drink in return) and we stopped on the reach this time. We saw Fran and Martin and Rich and Zak go up further, but we decided we’d see more action where we were. Max came up doubling Lou on a bike and they stopped to sit with us. Sadly, the first City women’s crew were bumped by the up-and-coming second 99s crew, but I did predict that one. Therefore they didn’t even come as far up as us. The other two women’s crews held out for rowovers.

Max told us that Ed had coxed the women’s crew that had borrowed our boat and apparently was unable to steer it. They had full rowing power on one side + full rudder but they still weren’t going around a corner. In desperation, Ed had his whole arm in the water trying to steer the thing. Max must have been doing a pretty good job to keep the thing on track – the story was substantiated by Danielle talking to Ed later at the party. We decided that we might have had a chance to catch City 6 had the rudder been doing something to help us take the corners.

The first div men’s crews went through and I think no one was bumped from City. We headed back to the boathouse and the bbq was well on the way to being cooked. Max offered Vicky and me some of his fruit flan which was very good. I went home to get changed and missed the presentations and the coxes going in the river, though I don’t think there were any surprises.

The two City 7 crews made the presentation of gifts to Emma and Jo. They both really are very cool. The party was fun – there were fireworks and fire throwing and someone threw Brian’s City 7 crew in the river because they were the only ones to get blades. Simon wasn’t happy because he lost one of his thongs. City 8 called me into their huddle as they talked about the week and gave Kat and George gifts. I got to have my arm around Rich for about 5 minutes. While we were talking to George, he said that he’d been impressed with how W City 7 was looking and thought that we would bump City 6.

The music started after midnight, and the dancing soon followed. The bar dried up at about 3am. Rich was doing silly dancing and finding the dregs of everyone else’s drinks, and the rest of us were rocking it up to 50s rock’n’roll. Brian can really dance. I left at about 4.15.

Bumps night 3

We got up to the lock in good time again. I think Max picked me up on my catch again here, but only because I had lost concentration a few times. Champs 6 were awarded a technical rowover as well, because they were in front of us again. I told Max what I thought the problem was – about the balance meaning that I couldn’t square in time, and therefore not catch in time either. I had been squaring with Beth and sometimes catching before her when the balance was lurching.

We had a good start, as our game plan was still to put everything into the start so we could catch the next crew early and avoid a long row. Max took the first corner too close and we went through some thick weed. Fran caught a crab and slowed us down a bit. When we were sure that we wouldn’t bump anyone (Champs 6 had bumped City 6, and Radegund 2 had bumped 99 5), we relaxed and took the rating and the pressure down a bit. We rowed the rest of the course at a comfortable pace – half pressure but much lower rating. Emma called for the rating to go up again and so we tried but failed. It felt comfortable though.

We pulled in after the railway bridge near M City 7 and did our swap. We had some energy left after this, and felt reasonably contented. We rowed back down with my catches together but my finishes early still. This meant that I wasn’t following Kathy’s body movements, though sometimes I think she wasn’t sliding as far as me.

City 3 decided they didn’t want to use our boat again, so we had to put it away with the help of Angela and her crew.

We decided to go up and watch the races, and so Danielle drove Vicky and me, dropping me off on the way to get changed and get camera. I walked up, watching the women’s first div on the way, and met them there, along with Becky and Beth. We sat on Grassy Corner and watched the men’s first div, including a bump right in front of us – think it was Champs bumping 99 4. We then headed back and Danielle, Vicky and I went back to the boathouse for drinks. Kat and Brian got fish and chips. It was a late one, but fun.

Bumps night 2

I got to the river much earlier this time (5.40) and helped to get the boat in (with help from City 8). We pushed off and got up to the lock in good time, doing some starts on the way. We got out at the last station and stretched our legs in the shade. I had much more energy than the previous night.

At the gun we had a much better start, having gone to frontstops at 10 and squaring at 7, and raced past a lot of boats who had bumped or been bumped. I think Anne caught a crab in this race near the motorway bridge. We were turning the corner into Grassy at race pace when a crew pushed off the bank in front of us (we think it was Champs 6 again). Max called us to hold it up hard and yelled at the other crew to ask what the hell they were doing. Their cox answered that they were trying to get back into the race having run into the bank due to traffic congestion and we were ruining their chances (think they called Max an idiot). We rowed on but pulled in before long to work out what happened. We were awarded a technical rowover. It would have been a bump had Champs 6 had any choice but to go into the bank.

It took so long for the traffic jam to clear – every crew behind us went past before we could push off – that we had to cling onto the bank while the men’s division raced past. We saw City 8 bump X-Press 6 right in front of us.

We rowed back as last night, and again I used this time to diagnose and improve. Again I worked on matching Anne but it still felt weird and premature and I was still finishing early. City 3 used our boat after us. I stayed for one drink with City 8 before heading off.

Bumps night 1

It was a horribly hot day – I think about 33 degrees. Emma sent us an email telling us to keep cool and drink lots of water and eat lots of pasta. I had a pasta salad from M&S but still managed to feel ill for most of the day (both from the heat and from nerves).

I had gone to the Registrary’s Garden Party at Clare but only stayed about 5 minutes before I had to hightail it to the river. I ran some of it so was feeling hotter, more tired and sicker than I had to. I got there at about 4.50, and the boat was already in the water. I got my new shirt, and we got into the boat. Emma had swapped over Kathy and Fran, probably because Fran was catching early due to her bum-shoving and therefore the back of the boat was following her and not Anne. At least this way there would be less people to follow her. There was faffing as the cox box wasn’t working and I think we had to get another one.

We pushed off about 5.30 I think and rowed up to the lock (there was a lot of traffic and we got past the railway bridge later than the 20 mins prior we were supposed to). Max picked me up on my late catch and picked Fran up on her early one. He asked us to compensate by either catching earlier or later. He told me to relax my shoulders and to not let my blade hang in mid-air before letting it drop. It was easier to follow Kathy than Fran.

Our station was second last and we spun and pulled in to the bank. There was no time to get out of the boat – the 4 minute gun went a couple of minutes after we got there. This was a mistake because we were all hot and bothered and had no time to compose ourselves. The 1 minute gun went and Emma started to count down. We pushed off at 30 and moved to frontstops as soon as we could, squaring our blades ready for the start. Bow and two had to tap a few times and I don’t think were ready for the final gun. We had a tentative and wonky start but got moving. City 8 cheered us as we went past. We got as far as the motorway bridge before Champs 6 bumped us. We didn’t keep rowing on as we should have, but I think we did end up pulling over.

We rowed on and pulled over again so that Max could get out and Danielle could swap to the cox’s seat. We rowed back without a cox box and I used this time to really work on my catch. I really zeroed in on what Anne was doing, and realised that I would have to get my hands away faster and speed up my slide to get there in time. Even then, when I was matching the catch, it felt very premature and I was finishing early as a result.

We got the boat out with help from City 8. City 8 had ‘bumped’ the Cantabs 13 crew in front of them because they never even had a chance to start rowing. There was blade/head contact which Cantabs complained about to the Bumps Committee. Fran and Kat were upset about it. We girls went for a drink upstairs feeling a little sorry for ourselves. Most of City 8 went up to watch the other races, and I went home later than I should have.

Starts and firm pressure

Max was coxing and Emma was coaching for this 8am outing.

I had bought a stretch bandage and some zinc oxide tape at Katherine’s suggestion and wrapped up my hand against the pressure of the blade. It worked a treat. Lance the boatman wasn’t able to rustle up any new shoes, so I tried moving the footplate up two notches and stuffing socks between my feet and the tongues of the shoes. It wasn’t ideal but at least my feet didn’t move.

We warmed up, rowing with a bit of firm pressure up to the lock. Max didn’t have anything bad to say to me, and he almost immediately started picking Fran up on her early catch, berating her all through the outing. We stopped for a breather and some hints from Emma, and she told me I wasn’t leaning forward enough at the catch. I had already surmised that my arms weren’t stretched forward enough, but the lean as well makes sense – it explains why I was catching with Anne but finishing before her. I tried really hard to do it at low rating but the savage slide pulled me back every time. At high rating it was easy because the momentum was pushing me forward.

We did about 3 starts on the way back upstream with Emma calling the start. They were quite good – she was fairly happy. I was happy with what I did with the draws and the winds and lengthens. Then we did one start before the rail bridge and rowed all the way to the Pike and Eel. It absolutely buggered me – my feathering hand pumped up and became almost useless, I was out of breath and I couldn’t will myself to shift my weight forward properly. I just hope our start is good enough to catch the next boat so we don’t have to row any further. The whole boat was pretty messy – Fran was certainly flagging.

We rowed light pressure back to the boathouse, passing Ashley’s crew on the way. After pulling in we practised some real starts off the bank with a pole and ‘chain’. They were hard because bow and 2 have to keep adjusting and therefore are frantically straightening when the cannon goes. Emma counted off from a minute, and it was very good to actually do it so that on the night fear won’t set in and freeze me up. We went crooked a couple of times, and clashed blades on the bank once (which won’t happen because the chain is actually much longer than the strap Emma was using).

Better ladies outing, shredded hand, and too much rum

Patrick coxed this session and I don’t think we had a coach.

The balance was much better – we had Sylvia subbing for Beth. We did more starts, this time with three draws, five winds and five lengthens. Patrick was quite happy with what we were doing. I rowed better than I had in the previous session, but had real shoe issues. The shoes in five are huge and so Emma had suggested I stuff the bottom with socks and try to push my toes into the top. When I set them they were fine, but they worked their up under my heels and then contributed to pushing my feet out of the shoes. My feathering arm was really sore and pumped up – I think I used my outside hand a few times because a blister formed under my index finger.

I had put on a blister plaster to cover up last night’s effort, but after about half way, it had rolled up, stuck and become useless. I strapped my hand with a sock for the rest of the outing, but not before the blisters got worse. The sock seemed to work though. I was quite glad that there would be a fair gap before the next outing, hopefully with some healing included.

I went out with Fran, Rich and Kat this night – started at the Avery, then to a club in a lane off Sidney street and then to Rich’s place in Arbury. Rich fed us OP Bundy rum which was a really bad idea. Went to sleep at about 5.15 in Rich’s sleeping bag after Fran and I realised that Kat had gone upstairs with him. Hmmmm. Got up at 7 and walked home to have a little nap for half an hour, then breakfast and to work. Phew.

First outing with the ladies' crew

This was my first outing with the ladies’ crew. Max was coxing and Jo was coaching.

The boat looked like this:

Stroke – Anne

7 – Beth

6 – Fran

5 – me

4 – Kathy

3 – Becky

2 – Vicky

Bow – Danielle

We used cleavers and I told Jo that I was going to be rubbish before we started. It took me half the outing to not feel completely unco with the blade, the balance was chronically down on bowside, Fran in front of me was bum-shoving in a big way and Max was abusing me for catching late. Jo called something out to me early on but I couldn’t hear her. I think it was about drawing up at the finish. I concentrated on that and might have improved. Jo had us doing some lifting exercises where we had to push with our legs so hard that we came off the seat. I think we all did it successfully and as a result the boat moved very well. We did some starts with three draws, five winds, five powers and five lengthens, and rowing fast fixed the balance, but I was shocked at the seriousness and aggression of what was happening. All the fast rowing absolutely shredded my left hand. I ended up with five really nasty and deep blisters on my palm. On top of everything, the boat was really heavy to lift, but that’s probably because we are all girls and not Rich and Zak.

I came out of that session feeling rather depressed.

Bank party and lone erg

I was due to erg again with the ladies’ crew, but Fran emailed me in desperation that day wanting me to ride along the towpath to keep a lookout for other boats (quasi coaching) for their crew. So I did. I didn’t do much really but it was good to see what they were doing and analyse the problems.

Afterwards I went to the gym and did what I could of the erg plan Emma had set us. We were to do 2 x 20 min sets at 22-24 spm at three quarter to full pressure. I managed about 15 mins then about 11 before the gym shut. I didn’t do it very well because I hadn’t eaten and was feeling a bit weak.

Even more ergs

Emma set us an erg task of four 1000m pieces at 30 spm with a five minute break in between each. Only me, Danielle, Anne and Kathy came and as Trinity Hall was being used, we went into the First and Third boathouse. It was a very useful session and a fantastic boathouse.

It was very hard work though, and after the second piece Anne ran off to be sick. My back had been giving me trouble and Emma had told me to be aware of aching pain versus shooting stabbing pain. It was uncomfortable (aching) for the first piece, but after that I didn’t notice it. The biggest challenge was an aerobic one.

More ergs

Anne had hurt herself, so we did another erg session. It was good that it was with the full crew (minus Anne) so we had a good chance to get things together.

Jumping ship

I made the decision today to row with Danielle’s ladies’ crew for the bumps. It was a bit hard but I think it’s for the best. So I met them at 6.15 for ergs and went down to Trinity Hall boathouse where they have lots of ergs. There were three of us, with Emma coaching. We had the ergs side-by-side and did our warm up with arms, arms/bodies, then sliding. We then worked together with Emma providing feedback. She had nothing to say to me. We started with the rate at 20 then took it up gradually to 26. It’s an amazing feeling rowing that fast. It also exhausts you very quickly. It felt good though.

I went back to the boathouse because I was rowing with my crew for this and Sunday’s outings as they were short. Lo and behold, I had to turn around and get straight back on the same ergs I had just got off. The bow four had a go and got quite well together, lifting our rate to about 26 again. The stern four just couldn’t keep together. Boo!

We got the boat out, with Kat coxing and Maggie coaching. I was back in 2, and Zak was in stroke and Sikander was in 6, which made me happy. We did quite a long warm up, and then some eight rowing up to the lock. Maggie spoke to us up at the lock after we spun and only had feedback for Fran, Ashley (back caving in at backstops) and Sikander (squaring late and blade not out in gate properly).  We took off again with all 8, then did some firm pressure work in sixes which was very useful. Kat tried to bring the eight back in but it fell apart.

We then did some square blade work in rolling sixes which was designed to get us tapping down properly. It was quite good. Then we did all eight back to the boathouse and kicked arse rowing at firm pressure. It was great and the balance was fantastic. We pulled into the boathouse rowing well and Brian told me later that we had looked great and he offered to cox for us (this is because Simon had tried to get Kat to cox for them). Ashley announced that I was leaving the crew, Kat said the session was great, and we went up to have a beer. Kat told me mid-beer that I’m rowing very well, and have improved a lot just over the last two sessions. I explained that my confidence improves with the balance. It will be just my luck that that crew wins blades at the bumps and the ladies’ crew bombs out.

Better in seven

I got there early to talk to Danielle about her crew needing an extra rower but she didn’t arrive in time and they did get a sub in the end. I told Becky that I was torn because I was committed to my crew, but at the same time would like to row in a crew of my own height (and to myself I said I wanted to row with a crew with better balance).

I found myself in 7 again for this outing and I was fairly dubious about it. I let Kat know my concerns and she said she’d keep an eye on me. Thankfully both she and George kept an eye on it and asked for strokeside to tap down and draw in differently which seemed to right the problem to a large extent.

We did some starts and a lot of firm pressure rowing, which worked up a pretty good sweat in everyone. No one’s seats came off, Zak only caught one crab, and on the whole it was a fairly no-nonsense session. Up at the lock George told me I was looking OK, but that I should draw in higher and not lean back as far. Zak pointed out that the 7 seat is chocked up higher than the others. I ended up feathering in the way that (I think) Brian had told me about where you actually flick your wrist to the side rather than up and down. It worked a treat, but I now have scary blisters on the palm on my left hand.

The time race

We all congregated at the boathouse at 6.30 and got our blades and scraped together some dodgy-looking seats because that was all that was left. We got the boat out and were asked to move up, and so moved up to where the bank ended at the lock end. We had to fix the speaker system and so a few crews asked us to move off. We ignored them until they got insistent. Boat after boat after boat kept coming out of the boathouses and wanting space on the water. It was unbelievable.

We inched our way down river through the traffic to past the railway bridge. I was nervous because I’d had such a bad experience on bowside recently and I was acutely away of the effect I was having on the balance in that seat and couldn’t ask George about how to deal with it. We were crew number 18 and I had the number on my back because I was in bow. That meant we had to wait against the bank opposite number 17 and wait to be called down to start. It took ages and we could see crews stretching downriver for what seemed like miles (we later found out there were at least 64 crews).

We finally rowed off and gently passed under the railway bridge with a relaxed rhythm. Despite this, I was so nervous I was shaking and caught half a crab early on and recovered. We built up speed and the balance improved gradually until we were going quite fast. The crew behind overtook us and clashed our blades. I felt a little more comfortable by this stage and when we crossed the finish line we were flying (for our standards).

Later George complimented me on my level head when we clashed bowside blades with a passing crew. I also asked Melissa about balance and she thought that George was going the right way about it in just getting our blades in and out together. She talked about drawing in and tapping down heights, which we incorporated in our next outing.

We found out at about 9.30 that our crew came 25th out of 29 mens’ crews in a time of 10 mins 25 seconds. Ashley said that this attracted the attention of the Club captain. Someone told us that two men’s crews crashed on the corners.

Terrifying crab

The day of fright…

We had George (and his wife for the first half) coaching and someone called Emily coxing. The boathouse guy (I think it was him) made some adjustments to the footplates before we took off. Ewan was in bow, I was in 2, Martin in 3 and Liz in 4. Rich 5, Zak 6, Allan 7 and Matt stroke.

We warmed up (joke since it was so bloody hot) and rowed in sixes down to the lock. George’s wife gave us feedback and insisted that I was catching early. I’m sure I wasn’t.

Allan was to swap with Maria here, and so since Allan is bowside and Maria only rows strokeside, I volunteered to go into 7 so Maria could go into 2. I didn’t mind at all because I wanted to work back on bowside to see if I could still do it. George decided to have us doing some firm pressure work in 4s so we weren’t distracted with balance issues. I was rather happy at this, and bow went first, then stern. I was rowing with all the big boys and I felt like I was actually contributing to moving the boat. Bow side felt very good. I think my left hand is naturally better at feathering. I was very pleased at how I was rowing in this section.

Then they brought all eight in. The balance went to hell and it was chronically down on bowside. For some reason the 7 seat took the brunt of it and I literally could not lift my blade out of the water because it was hard against the opposite gunwale. I couldn’t square and I could hardly get the blade behind me at all. During my struggles, my thumb got pinched between the gunwale and the blade, but not squarely. I fought on for a few more strokes, with maybe 3 good ones, until I caught an enormous crab and they stopped the boat. The blade handle moved quite violently and made contact with my face, but must have only touched it. I hate to think what would have happened had my reactions not been quite good.

I was thoroughly rattled after this and close to tears. I called out to the bank that I couldn’t row in the 7 seat. They took Maria back out, put me back in 2, and George’s wife went into 7. Maria had moved my footplate, and I couldn’t get it back where it was. I got it as good as possible and we went off all eight. I was hoping that the boat would stay leaning to bow to show George’s wife what I’d been going through, but the lean, while there, was nowhere near as bad. I don’t understand why that happened. I didn’t row terribly well here, but the balance was over to stroke side a few times. We did some firm pressure work here for quite some time and hearteningly, the balance was rather good when we did that.

After we got the boat away, we went upstairs to watch a video of the 2003 Boat Race, which was absolutely fantastic. We had a beer (it was Rich’s round) and I offloaded a lot of the fruit from the degree ceremony. Zak told me that he had been in that 7 seat recently and found it very difficult, but he thought it was just because his legs were too long. After I got out Zak had suggested to someone that the rigger might be too low. Rich said he was struggling in 5, with the blade handle against the gunwale, but the problem wasn’t as pronounced there. I felt marginally better, that perhaps it wasn’t my fault.