Newsletter#2, Michaelmas Term, 1999 (12th December)

This term we have had a number of people trialling for places in the University crews. Richard Law (Men's Captain 96/97) was selected for the lightweight crew to race in their annual fixture against the heavyweight development squad. In last week's OUBC Trial Eights Race, Ed Foster (Isis 97 and 98) rowed at no.4 in Loathing, which dead-heated with Fear. Matt Smith, a fresher, has also been trialling for OUBC; he was the stroke of the GB Junior Coxed Four which won a gold medal in last summer's World Championships. Emily Woodeson (Women's Captain last year) and Catherine Ellicott (Women's 1st VIII cox) are trialling for OUWBC, Emily recently finishing 4th in the Women's Under-23 category at the British Indoor Rowing Championships. Nowadays she happily signs off her emails with a quote from one of her tutors: 'Emily seems to regard Oxford as a diverse sporting arena in which contact with us takes a small but rather unfortunate sideline.'

OUBC has enough sponsorship money to cover all their triallists' costs, but women and lightweights are expected to contribute a substantial amount themselves. In addition to the usual transport and kit, it is now customary for the squads to hold training camps in Spain over the Christmas vacation, so the total cost usually amounts to several hundred pounds. The College allows its students engaged in University-level sports to claim expenses of up to a hundred pounds but the Rowing Society has recently decided that we can, and should, match the College's contribution for those involved in University rowing.

Report from Sarah Boddy, Women's Captain:

This term has been very encouraging with respect to women's rowing at St Catherine's College. Importantly there was a sizable influx of keen novices, many with great potential in the sport.

For Christ Church Regatta we put out two womens crews with a couple of girls in the mixed boat. Whilst neither crew progressed beyond the 3rd round, there were clearly a number of talented rowers emerging in both boats.

From the senior side of things, this term was approached predominantly as a developmental period. We trained as an VIII most of the time, with six experienced rowers and a number of the novices gaining extra experience through filling in the remaining seats. The most notable novice being Laura Goodsir, who became a fixed member of the senior crew within her first five weeks of rowing!

We entered one crew into Autumn Fours which came 3rd, which was very pleasing being as we had hardly trained as a four. The VIII and IV entered Nephthys Regatta and due to some harsh luck and inexperience within the crews, we only made the semi-finals in both cases. Our attempt to race in the Fairbairns on the Cam was stopped by terrible weather conditions.

Even so, after a further term's rowing and experience gained through the participation in external regattas, I am confident that the womens 1st and 2nd VIIIs will both do well in Torpids. I'm also really pleased with the enthusiasm and ambition shown from both the experienced and novice rowers which I am sure will really help in both success terms and enjoyment of rowing at Catz.

Report from Simon Evans, Men's Captain:

When Anu had to remind me (twice) to write this report I knew it said something about this term as a whole. Things have happened, and afterwards we wondered how the last two weeks had gone by without anyone noticing. Here's what happened:

The senior squad entered two IV's in Autumn Fours with part of next years 1st Torpid beating part of last years blade-winning 1st Torpid, then (almost) the same IV narrowly lost to St John's in the final of Nephthys Regatta.

The men's novice 'B' crew had an incredible win on Thursday of Christ Church Regatta after an early blade clash destroyed 2 and 4's spoons. The cox later told me that in order to stay straight he had to use full left rudder for most of the race! Unfortunately they then succumbed to the almost traditional post Catz night exit on Friday along with the men's novice 'A's'. And that was about it (at least we didn't lose half a boat down the M1...)

Ah, yes, Sarah neglected to mention that one further mishap associated with the men's and women's VIIIs abortive expedition to the Fairbairns was that the stern half of What Tiggers Like Best, the Women's 1st VIII shell, was blown off the trailer on the way back. It's been taken back to Janousek's and, hopefully, will be back as good as new for the start of next term. I remember that after the second time that had happened with Piglet, the Dean insisted that only the boatmen be allowed to tie boats on to trailers. I assume it was one of the boatmen who tied it on this time ... ?

Some alumni news. Also in the British Indoor Rowing Championships, Tom Skinner (M.76) finished 2nd in the 40--44 Lightweight Category. On a less strenuous note, I recently received an email announcing "In a move long anticipated by experts after four years of close partnership, Supple & Co will merge with Atanasov Inc." which I eventually deciphered to mean that Alan Supple (M.86) got married last month.

So far I've heard nothing of any developments regarding the OUBC boathouse site, although at our boathouse the new workshop looks almost complete. For general interest, below I've given the current inventory of the Catz Fleet (does anyone have dates or names for the two old sculling boats?), and I remind you that there is a slip for advanced orders of the forthcoming History of St Catherine's Rowing in the current edition of the St Catherine's Year.

So, Armageddon, the Collapse of Civilisation As We Know It, Y2K Bugs and, most seriously, let's-be-doing-something-really-silly-at-the-stroke-of-midnight-stunts permitting ... until next term, then.

Anu Dudhia (email: dudhia@atm.ox.ac.uk)

Links

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