The Neptunes January 2019 Volume 10, Issue 2
Maria Rust
A great start to the year! Clara Percival, Publicity Officer
WITH THE FESTIVE SEASON OVER, MECBC is looking forward to another term of rowing. Especially after the successes of Michaelmas! The start of the year saw a lot of enthusiasm with a lot of novice sign ups in freshers' week, resulting in three new boats being formed. Facing QErgs, Clare Regatta, Emma Sprints and of course Fairbairns, many of our novices are ready to take on senior rowing. This term's issue contains an account of the term from our two very proud Lower Boats Captains, Helena and Phoebe, as well as the perspective of an Erasmus student on the experience of rowing and Cambridge in her first term at Cambridge.
In other exciting news, MECBC's Captain of Boats, Giulia, competed in Christmas Head as a double with some great results! Read on to find out more! A photo gallery can be found at the end of the newsletter for some of the best snaps this term. You can find this issue and all past issues on the website: http://mecbc.soc.srcf.net You can also find us on: Twitter: @_MECBC Instagram: @_MECBC Facebook: Murray Edwards College Boat Club
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Michaelmas Race Results Please visit the website for full results Fairbairns Women's Novice VIIIs NW1 came 44/51 with a time of 9.48 NW2 came 33/51 with a time of 9.10
For details of Clare Regatta and Emma Sprints see below in the LBCs account of the events!
ISSY PEARCE-MASON
Women's Senior IVs W1 came 13/23 with a time of 14.37 W2 came 22/23 with a time of 16.11
Giulia Bollen Gandolfo
Dates for the Diary Look out on our social media and website for more information regarding races, events and socials! Winter H2H: 26th January Pembroke Regatta: 16th February Lent Bumps: 5th-9th March WEHoRR: 16th March The Oxford vs. Cambridge Boat Race: 7th April
We are also organising an alumnae crew to take part in the Pembroke Regatta. If anyone is interested please email: boatclub-captain@murrayedwards.cam.ac.uk
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We would also like to give a warm welcome to our new senior treasurer, Sarah Williams! She is a Fellow at Murray Edwards College for Physics and has previously coached a little for MECBC as well as for KCBC.
Pots for the 'Lovedouble'! Giulia Bollen Gandolfo, 3rd Year, HSPS
ISSY PEARCE-MASON
AT THE START OF THE TERM, I mentioned to a friend at King’s that I was keen to improve my sculling. He immediately suggested we enter Christmas Head in a double. Matt had a fair amount of sculling experience, and I had sculled a few times before at the start of term, thanks to Taine who taught me the basics. Obviously, it’s no fun without some competition, so we set about trying to find others who would be keen to spend a morning in freezing conditions racing 1.6km in fancy dress. Felicity Parker, true to form, was in. Mark needed more convincing, but eventually agreed to enter against us. Over the term, our training consisted of five outings together, and we became affectionately referred to as the ‘lovedouble’ by King’s M1. On race day, weather conditions were not ideal. It was cold, and there was a strong headwind. We admired the costumes of the division before us, which included an VIII dressed up as pigs in blankets, and cheered on Mark and Felicity as they came past. On a wager of ‘the loser buys pints for the winning team’, we got into the boat determined to win. After about an hour of marshalling in cold, wet and windy conditions, and questioning our life choices, the race started. Neither of us could feel our arms, and as a result, steering was not quite as smooth as expected, with us having to stop under Green Dragon Bridge to avoid bumping into another crew that had crashed there. With a marshal shouting at us to move, we carried on, with Mark and Felicity cheering us on from the side. We finished, and headed to the pub for a celebratory drink, awaiting results. Turns out we actually won! And we got pots! Since then, Felicity has talked me into entering Winter League against her in a single. I’ve rowed in a single once, and the race is midJanuary. Wish me luck!
Giulia Bollen Gandolfo
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Proud LBCs' account of novice rowing
HI WE’RE HELENA AND PHOEBE, Lower Boats Captains for 2018/19. We had the pleasure of organising three boats of enthusiastic novices this Michaelmas term. Following a successful weekend of tubbing and with our newly recruited novices, we had our traditional snacks night at the beginning of term to decide crew names. The novices settled on the theme of dinosaurs and came up with the names Stegosaurus, Mosasaurus and Velociraptor. One thing that made this term so great was the real sense of team spirit that came with the novices being sorted into their crews. Not only did they want to better themselves and their crew but were also always willing to help out fellow novices by offering to sub in and swap outings. This made the term extremely successful by ensuring each crew was on the river twice every week! They also took up every offered opportunity for more training, which included a Downing tank session specifically for them. With the novices making great progress we were keen to enter them into several races. The first of these was Emma Sprints which saw Stegosaurus racing dressed as reindeers and Santa Claus. Despite losing their first race to Newnham, they remained in high spirits to beat Catz by a long stretch in their second race, and all enjoyed their first experience racing! The following weekend it was time for Velociraptor and Mosasaurus to compete in Clare Regatta. Mosasaurus had a very successful morning, managing to pip Lucy Cav to the post in their first race to make it through to the quarter finals of their division.
Alice Levin
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ISSY PEARCE-MASON
Helena Ascough & Phoebe Thomson-Bird, 3rd Year, Vetinary Medicine
Giulia Bollen Gandolfo
Proud LBCs' account of noviceofrowing Proud LBCs' account novice rowing Helena Ascough & Phoebe Thomson-Bird, 3rd Year, Vetinary Medicine Helena Ascough & Phoebe Thomson-Bird, 3rd Year, Vetinary Medicine
We were so proud of how they handled this. It was by far the most rowing they’d ever done in one outing and they kept their determination through to the end. The final week of term brought about Fairbairns which, as the biggest race and last outing of the novice term, was an exciting event for the rowers and coaches. Due to extremely high winds on the day, the event took place with a shortened course, finishing at the P&E. Both our novice coxes handled the difficult conditions really well and the crews stayed responsive to this throughout, with both boats completing the course with fantastic times! We also had some highlights of the term off the river, one being boatie tea, where we all got together in the middle of term to sing karaoke and eat lots of snacks. It’s only down to the novices’ enthusiasm that we were able to run our social events, and we hope to continue them next term! We couldn’t have done any of this without our lovely novice coaches - thank you for all your hard work - and we’re excited to see our novices continue into senior rowing with us this coming term!
Giulia Bollen Gandolfo
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AT THE BEGINNING OF TERM, the words 'backstops', 'feathering' or 'bow' meant nothing to me... literally nothing. Rowing is not a thing in Spain, I've never met someone in my country who actually practices this sport, I didn't even know what an eight looked like (and of course, I had no idea how much it weighs). The first outings were obviously tough: waking up super early, learning how to do something that you've never done before while coordinating with seven other novices, the cold mornings, sore muscles... Honestly, I was so lost, I didn't understand most of the thing our cox was telling us, I felt like I'd never be able to actually enjoy it, I felt like quitting most of the days, like the river Cam wasn't my place. But our first race made me see things differently: the adrenaline, all the crew working together, seeing all the blades catching at the same time, the level of speed we reached, hearing our cox shouting, encouraging us to push harder, to row faster... Clare regatta was the point when all made sense for me, all the effort was worth it, I realized that I HAVE LEARNED HOW TO ROW, AT THAT POINT I WAS A ROWER (maybe not a good one, but still). Now I enjoy early mornings and seeing the sun rising over the river, I love pushing myself to the limit to become stronger, faster, because now I see the purpose for all of this training and I know how satisfying it is. I can see the improvement. And the best thing of all is that I don't have to do it alone, there are wonderful girls next to me who share the same feelings, who experience the same things I do. Cambridge has given me the opportunity to practice a new sport, something that I would have never tried back in my country. I’m pretty sure rowing at Medwards will be one of the most important parts of my Erasmus memories, and I can’t wait to collect some more.
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Rowing, that great unknown ... at least for an Erasmus Student Virginia Manzano, Erasmus Student from Spain
Clare Jackson Maria Rust
Photo Gallery
FELICITY COHEN
And for more photos this term be sure to follow us on instagram. @_mecbc
ISSY PEARCE-MASON
Maria Rust
Giulia Bollen Gandolfo
LEANNE HAGGER
Leanne Hagger
Giulia Bollen Gandolfo
LEANNE HAGGER
The Neptunes January 2019 by Murray Edwards College Boat Club is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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