Christ’s College Boat Club Lent Term 2024 Report
With Lent termcomingto a close, the CCBC Captains have been reflecting on the events of the term. Please find brief reports from them below. Additionally, please also find a summary of each day of Bumps in a separate document.
As always thank you for you continued support for CCBC and please feel free to reach out to me with any boatie news or messages.
Best wishes,
Lizzie Snow (Publicity officer) eas207@cam.ac.uk
Facebook: @christsbc
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Website: christscollegeboatclub.co.uk
Captain of Boats Georgia Denham’s Report: Theboat clubhasenjoyedasuccessfulterm -muchfun was had by all! A clear highlight was W2 winning Blades in Lent Bumps. The crew were all Michaelmas 2023 novices, brilliantly coached to their triumph by Kate. We also saw M1's first bump since 2018 - onwards and upwards! I was lucky enough to be on the tow path for the row backs and couldn’t have been prouder of both crews. Special mention also goes to our former Captain of Boats, Katy Hempson. At time of writing, she has made it to CUBC’s Openweight _Trial VIIIs_ for CUBC’s Women’s Boat Race. Katy learned to row at Christ’s and transitioned to the OWs after her Lightweight Boat Race win against O*ford last year. Keep a look out as the final crews are announced in the coming weeks!
Thank you to everyone in the club, committee, coaching team and our friends further afield for a fantastic term!
Women’s Captain AnaRosa Capp’s Report:
The Women’s Side saw plenty of racing and success this Lent, despite the frightful weather and plenty of flooding. While deciding to not race off-Cam this term, W1 did race in Winter Head to Head, and Winter League 1 in the 8+. With many crew members out ill through the middle of term, a last minute decision resulted in a scratch 4+ racing in Newnham Head with the boat crowned winners of the division as the only college entrants! Despite being a crew new to rowing together, W1 trained hard and built a strong
crew bond both through ergs and team dinners. While we felt that our Bumps results (-2) did not reflect either this work or the caliber of rowing we know we can produce, it highlighted areas of improvement which we aim to tackle during both Holiday and Mays training.
W2 were the stars of the Christ’s Lent Bumps season with there very impressive Blades Campaign. With all of them racing in their first Bumps, they relied heavily on both their novice race experience as well as this terms racing in Newnham Head and Pembroke Regatta to power them through! Much of the boats success can be attributed to the cohesive group of rowers, almost all of whom noviced together and have continued to diligently train. We are incredibly proud of the results they were able to achieve this campaign!
Men’s Captain Mateo Hoare’s Report:
We came back from our training camp in Seville raring to get started, with two strong crews on the men’s side. M1 were once again very busy, with training intensity increasing from last term. We went big for our first race of term, entering Winter Head-to-Head twice, racing 4 x 2 km and coming in at both 11th (14:17.0) and 19th (14:37.8) place. The next weekend we left Cambridge for the college’s first off-Cam race in two years, to race the Head of the Nene in Peterborough. It was a really constructive experience that allowed us to row 5 km against crews from across the country, coming in at 23rd with a time of 19:16.0. Rowing in M2 was a big step up for the many exnovices in the crew, and they certainly delivered. They got their first opportunity to race in Newnham Head, with a firm 9th place finish in their division (8:31.0). Bumps was, as ever, the pinnacle of the term’s training. M1 went down one overall, with some extremely hard-fought battles playing out, managing a solid row over one day, and achievingthe crew’s first bump in six years on thefinal day against Caius M2. M2 held their position in the rankings, not letting being bumped on the first day deter them and bumping Trinity Hall M2 to move back up on the third day, with row overs achieved on the other days. M1 have not let the momentum drop and continued to train post-bumps, gearing up for the Head of the River Race on the Thames at the end of March
W2 Captain Bryony Clarke Report:
W2 has had a great first term together as a crew this Lent! After some bonding in the sunshine on camp in Seville, we returned to our native waters ready to train. Intimidated by the ergs and weights schedule ahead of us, what quickly blossomed was a very close group with great music taste andevenbettermotivationalquotes -asthefirst boatsknow well, crews who erg together stay together. Our first race at the start of term was Newnham Head, which left us middle of our division and feeling ready to train hard and improve our race approach. As Bumps crept closer and the outings got earlier, we realised our affinity for race starts and corners and started to hone a race technique which would be crucial forour blades campaign. Still workingontiming,
ratioandsetaswereturntonormaltraining,wehavegained a lot of confidence as a crew seeing our progress and results The weeks before and of Bumps saw the girls committed more than ever to our blades campaign and hit extra morning ergs, even when the river was flooded. Fuelled by Jaffa Cakes and crew pasta, the team spirit was higher than ever going into Bumps and our races improved each day - by the third day, we felt so sure we could get blades if we kept calm and pushed, and we did! The cherry on top of a great term of rowing, the row back with the Christ’s flag flying felt so deserved after all the hard work from W2. Ready for more at Mays!
M2 Captain Tom Vaughn’s Report:
It has been a term of highs and lows for M2, but we come out of it feeling overwhelmingly positive and proud with what we have managed to accomplish in suboptimal circumstances. With a boat consisting entirely of freshers (undergradandpostgrad),allofusarestillworkingouthow to balance our time and attention.
After a strong Newnham Head ninth place, two of our boys decided they could not carry on with the necessary time commitment. A few weeks before Bumps, what followed were endless frantic emails and messages to the whole Christ community
And, of course, they delivered. Joe Mutch stepped up without hesitation. Legend! Max Fenner, the W1 coach, also stepped up in our hour of need. Nor were they just making up numbers; Joe trained with us as much as possible and Max pushed beyond his limits in the boat when it counted most. The campaign itself was better than we could have hoped. We were bumped on the first day, but the scratch crew found its feet to row over (technically) on the second and bump on the third! By the last day, the relatively relaxed row over felt like a victory lap to a crew who were strangers to each other at the start of the week. Those coming back next term are fired up and ready to hit back hard.