Christ’s College Boat Club Winter 2022-23 Newsletter
Christ’s College Boat Club has had an exciting term, with the largest novice intake ever received. The new committee have swiftly taken up their roles and help to uphold the day-to-day running of the boatclub. Our Lower Boat’s Captains have worked incredibly hard to share their love of rowing and train the novices for their numerous races this term including Emma Sprints and Fairbairn’s, in which our crews put in a good effort. This Michaelmas edition of the CCBC Newsletter contains:
- A joint Captain’s Report from our Captain of Boats, Georgia, and our Men’s Captain, Alex, who comment on the many races and results from this term
- A race report from Autumn Head
- A race report from Emma Sprints
- A race report from Fairbairn’s
A link to a reflection on the rowing trip that the Crustaceans crew did in Wales this summer, written by Robert Holdsworth
- A social’s section about our swap with Corpus and Fitz and BCD
- A report on the Hungary training camp
- Featurespace’s ‘Featured Space’, a segment from our wonderful sponsors sharing some exciting graduate programmes and internships!
If any of you wish to share rowing news or stories with the rest of the CCBC community, you are more than welcome to contact me to be featured in the next edition.
Many thanks,
Alix (Publicity Officer)aced3@cam.ac.uk
Facebook: @christsbc
Instagram: @christscollegeboatclub
LinkedIn: @christscollegeboatclub
Website: christscollegeboatclub.co.uk
Joint Captain’s Report
As the new Club Captains for 2022-2023, the two of us are thrilled to present our first joint Captains report.
This Michaelmas has been a strong term for the club, kicking off our first year truly uninhibited by the pandemic, enthusiasm was in the air. This term saw recordlevelsofnovicesignups,fundraisingandareturn of our dearly missed annual training camp - the first we’ve had in 3 years!
Returningkeenafter aSummer full ofscullingandyoga - we fielded 2 senior men and 2 senior women's crews. Excited after our club's recent victory with W1 achieving blades back in Easter, all seniors came back fresh and invigorated for our pre-termrowing involving multiple outings a day to dive right back into training. It was not just the Seniors excited to get onto the camthis term we broke records with a whopping 85 novices signuptogiverowingatry.Inparticular,wehadagreat increase in postgraduate recruitment in no small part to both our persuasion and running of specific events such as our CCBCxMCR Brunch. Overall we fielded 3 Novice Men, 3 Novice Women and a mixed boat. We wouldliketo give agiant thankyou to our hardworking LBCs (James, AnaRosa, Tomi, Tom, Lizzie and Sarah) for captaining the novices and imparting on them a passion for the sport
Senior races kicked off with Winter Head with all four senior crews partaking. This was a particularly strong day for the Men’s side with M1 coming 12th and M2 coming9th in their divisions. For the novices, there was Emma Sprints and QErgs (an indoor 8x500m crew sprint hosted by Queens College). Christ’s NM1 (nicknamed Poseidon) deserves special mention for their great time of 14:06.5 at QErgs!
As is tradition, we donned our gowns and Blazers for our termly Boat Club Dinner - starting off with a prosecco reception in the OCR followed by an outstanding four-course dinner in the formal hall. Many new friendships were formed that night in addition to the speeches, the writing ofmessages on peoples menus and all washed down with plenty of wine.
We present this newsletter with Lent term training well underway. Off the back of an amazing Winter Training Camp in Hungary, we’ve hit the water rowing with our training. We’ve seen excellent novice retention rates meaning we have some very eager (and some very strong) new faces around the club. There is lots to get excited about this term - with M1 fighting for its place in Div 1, W1 hoping to repeat its success in Easter Bumps and M2 and W2 hoping to expand on their victories last Lent Bumps, coming +2 and +3 respectively last year. We’re working hard and excited to see what we can achieve!
Best Water Wishes,
Georgia (Captain of Boats and Women’s Captain) and Alex (Men’s Captain)
to report a 12:05.4 time and a montage-worthy overtake of Nines’ women in the final 750m. Philipe the Filippi was happyto be racingonce more, and it was a fantastic foundation for all our upcoming work.
Emma Sprints
Fundraising
CCBC thanks you all for your continued support. Ourequipment is totallyfinancedbyyour generous donations.
We are planning to raise funds over the next year to replaceanumberofboats, thedetails will besent out later this year.
If you would like further information please email ccbcboats@gmail.com
Autumn Head
In the week leading up to Autumn Head, our W1 crew began droppinglike flies with a nastybout of ‘Fresher’s Flu’. We were keen to use the race as a distance piece for two reasons: to assess where we were at, and so our newbies could gain some longer race experience ahead of The Fairburns Cup. With the race entry already paid, we had 3 seats to fill - with half of Cambridge unwell it was crunch time.
We were incredibly grateful to W1 veterans Juliane and Erin for stepping in without hesitation, and to our amazing coach Max for joining us in the 6 seat at the eleventh hour. With Max in the crew, we sadly were no longer in contention for our prior Collegiate Women’s 1st Div. category, and were moved into the Open VIIs. With blustering conditions down the reach, I’m happy
After weeks of intense training with our LBCs, our novices took on the 500m sprint. Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, no women’s side crews could row, however, two men’s side crews raced. They spent the few days leading up to Emma sprints debating the most important fact about the race – their costumes, finally settling on dressing as crabs (thankfully there were no real crabs during the race itself!). NM1 raced against Anglia Ruskin University. Following a crash due to the marshall not lining them up correctly, they crashed, and hence had to re-row, where they subsequently beat ARU. They went on to race Clare, who were very tough competition, and sadly didn’t manage to pull ahead of them. Overall, NM1 did very well considering the stressful morning and the crash incident.
Christ’s Armada
NM2 also had a tough day of rowing with fierce compeititors. Sadly, they lost against Emmanuel NM3 and Kings NM2, however theyput up a very good fight. The outcomes of the day didn’t stifle their determination, rather made them more committed in the run up to Fairbairn’s!
The novices enjoyed themselves greatly and could not wait to continue training as they prepared for Fairbairn’s.
Peterborough
At the end of October, CCBC took is it’s crucial novice training trip to Peterborough. Having got the coach early in the morning we arrived ready to rig the boats up and get in some valuable miles whiteout the queues of the Cam. It was a great chance for our novices to learn to row with all 8 and have their first go at race stars before Emma Sprints.
With some competitive races between crews it was great to get theboats up to speedevenifit did mean one novice took a dip after an unfortunate ejector crab! Having had a great day training we headed home to take the Cam by storm!
Fairbairn’s
CCBCtookpartinanumberofracesthistermincluding Autumn and Winter Head but the main focus of our training this term centred on Fairbairns. Taking place on the 1st and 2nd of December, our rowers were keen to see what they could achieve. We entered 4 senior boats,2noviceboatsandforthefirsttimeinmanyyears a fellows boat. Despite the dreary grey weather and headwind, all crews had a fun filled day of racing and achievingsome promisingresultswith bothM1andW1 pushing up on their competition relative to how we performed earlier in the term during Winter Head - if this trend continues, come Lent Bumps, the other colleges won’t know what's hit em’!
Fairbairns Results
M1 - 15th (15:58)
W1 - 14th (18:05)
M2 - 37th (18:24)
W2 - 34th (21:01)
This Fairbairns race was a particularly special significance. We were extremely happy to welcome the Crustaceans and partners back to the boat house again to celebrate the 15-year anniversary of alumni rowing at CCBC. For the event, the college flag (normally only flown in the event of Blades during bumps) was dusted off for a row back of glory by Crustaceans M1.
Continuing the tradition, a deal was struck between the Crustaceans and W1 - If W1 were to be faster than all of the three Crustacean crews racing, then they would buy them a round of drinks at BCD. The gentlemen that they are, the Crustaceans followed through having lost to W1 by 5 seconds!
(Thanks to Sebastian Peel for the brilliant photos).
Crustaceans Rowing Trip
The Crustaceans crew embarqued on a rowing trip to Walesthissummer,inwhichfivemembersrowedalong the Canal meandering through the Brecon Beacons National Park. Please follow the following link to a reflection on the rowing trip written by one of our Alumni, Robert Holdsworth. http://christscollegeboatclub.co.uk/a-2022crustaceans-adventure/
Socials!
Thistermhasinvolvednumeroussocials,asever.Immi, our social secretary made sure to include something for everyone, novices, seniors and subs. The term started off with wholesome women’s and men’s side drinks at the pub, with an open mic. This was a chance for last year’srowers tocatch up beforeintense trainingstarted.
Afewweekslater,thenovicesandseniorsalikeenjoyed a swap with Corpus Christi and Fitzwilliam Colleges at Nanna Mex. Much of the conversations involved the upcoming Fairbairn’s and we could all feel the strong sense of competition in the air! That same week, novices particularly enjoyed a novice formal with their LBCs in which they got to know their crewmates in a “non-training” setting.
We ended the term as always, on a high note, with the Boat Club Dinner, in our lovely formal hall. Whilst a few of the CCBC members were unable to attend due to the Varisty Ski Trip, the dinner was no less enjoyable. Gifts were exchanged, friendships were forged and everyone excited to go home and rest before the exciting departure for the training camp to Hungary.
Hungary Training Camp
As Captains we are proud to have overseenthe return of our annual training camp to the baroque city of Győr in Hungary. Our usual destination of Lac d’Aiguebelette in France was unfortunately unavailable, so we had the unique opportunity to form new links with another boat club and visit somewhere new. To help fund this new adventure, current students of the club pulled together over theSummer, rowingan impressive combined1111 km (the distance from Cambridge to Hungary) to raise funds for camp. Thanks to your generosity, we raised over £2000 - We are so fortunate to be part of a club with such kind and supportive members - camp truly would not have been possible without your help.
Our hosts at the Győri Atlétikai Club don’t just house Győr’s local team, but is also the site where the Hungarian National Squad train. In total 35 students (both novice and seniors) and 5 coaches (including the Crustaceans Al Docwra and Rick Nelson) made the journey. The facilities there were incredible including top of the range boats, a full gym and even an indoor tank-not that weneededthetank,aswewereextremely fortunate for a spell of warm, sunny weather despite being in the midst of Winter. In particular we were all amazed to discover that all of Hungary’s Olympic boats were housed here - M1 even had the opportunity to row in one of the boats recently taken to the World Championships!
Both the universityandboat clubinGyőr werefabulous hosts, providing us with accommodation and even organised awelcome fromthe Mayor of Győr alongside atourofthecity'stownhall,cathedralandacastletower overlookingtheriver.CCBC’svisit causedquitethestir - attracting crowds to watch M1 and W1 race against Győr’s trialling youth squads along this gorgeous stretch of the Danube. Both our crews put up a good fight but werejust pippedtothepost byourhosts -there is clearly something in the water here in Hungary! CCBC even made it onto local TV and news! Read all about our coverage and including post-race interview with Men’s Captain Alex and BoatwomanKate here:
https://www.gyorplusz.hu/sport/gyac-gyozelmek-acambridge-i-evezosok-ellen/
https://hunrowing.hu/gyorben-edzotaboroztak-acambridge-i-egyetem-evezosei/
(Seethenextpagetoseehowtotranslatethesearticles!)
After 5 days of intense training, including 3 outings a day and two days of sparring, the group spent our last nightinthecapitalBudapest forawellearnedrestparty. A group trip to the Széchenyi Thermal Bathhouse was a particular highlight and the perfect end to camp. Overall, camp has drastically improved the rowing quality of both seniors and novices alike, fostered a renewed sense of club spirit and genuinely inspired a new generation of CCBCers to continue with the clubin fact, we were amazed discover that some of the novices who attended had even organised their own erg test only a day after returning to Cambridge! We speak for everyone in the club that we cannot wait for next year's camp!
Translating the the news articles with Google Chrome:
1) Click the three dots at the top right of google
2) Select Settings
3) Select Language
4) Click Add Languages and select ‘Hungarian’
5) Click the three dots next to Hungarian and select ‘Offer to translate pages in this language’
6) Return to the article and a pop up should appear asking you if you wish to translate into English.
The group outside Győr town hall M1 mid-race taking on the Hungarian host crew Győr is a baroque city in North-West Hungary Winners of our Benchmarking receiving medals Our wonderful coaches alongside Győr Boatclub coaches