SCCBC - Captains' Reports MT2008

Women's Boat Club

Catherine Wherity, Women's Captain

This term Catz managed to recruit many girls all very excited to be part of the boat club, including five with previous rowing/sculling experience. These experienced rowers have been a great addition to our two senior crews training this term. We were also able to recruit enough novices to form two novice boats one training competitively and one just enjoying some leisurely afternoon outings! Our first novice crew organised by Clare Wilcockson and coached by Rob Hollis put in a lot of training both on and off the water. Their first taste of racing came in the Nephthys regatta which followed a week of no training because of the red flag. They fought hard but the lack of water time and an early incident which resulted in a restart meant they were narrowly beaten to the finish.

Their first race of the Christ Church regatta against Balliol was reported by the OxStu as the “race to watch”! They dominated this race and received a bye straight through to the third round. Unfortunately they came up against a very strong Wolfson crew and despite being ahead at the start they were beaten. A huge thank you and congratulations must go to all the new rowers this term for all the hours of hard work and training they put in.

The senior women have had two crews training this term, one competitively and one not. W1 were very fortunate to have five girls returning from last year’s first boat as well as some keen and committed new members. We trained hard on and off the water from the very beginning and entered both IWLs and the Nephthys Regatta winning all three events. We are very excited going into Hilary term and will be training hard throughout the holidays and next term to defend our headship! Hopefully the weather will continue to be kind. We expect to enter three boats into Torpids all of which should be very strong and in with a good chance of winning blades.

A massive thank you must go to all the committee this term who have ensured everything has been organised and also to Rob Hollis who has continued to coach W1 and the first novice boat to great success. In addition thanks must go to Colin Groshong who very kindly came to chat to all our coxes giving some very helpful advice.

Men's Boat Club

Toby Smyth, Men's Captain

This term got off to a flying start of term with over 35 new men coming to the Tank and Taster Outings sessions. This settled into three solid novice boats, solid because each boat was really a squad of 10 or 11 men with everyone getting a chance to row.

In an attempt to counter the usual high drop off in rowers that occurs over the Christmas holidays we decided to take training in a more relaxed manner this term, focusing almost exclusively on water outings with only the weekly optional Erg Club for land training. We will have to wait until the new year to see if this has paid off.

Luckily then the weather has been quite kind to us with only a single week with the river unrowable, and Christ Church being able to go ahead, where one of our novice boats made it through to the last day of racing, getting knocked out by Exeter A who went on to reach the final. However all three crews who entered did a terrific job, really giving it their all.

On the senior side of things we have been fortunate to be able to put together a squad of over ten experienced rowers. This allowed us to enter a light and a heavy IV into Autumn fours. Despite our casual training plan our boats made it to the semifinal and final respectively, losing to the same Balliol A boat. Further success followed in Nephthys regatta, where we our VIII reached the final again, and Isis Winter League where, according to OURC timing, one of our IVs was the second fastest vessel on the water, a close 5 seconds behind Teddy Halls 1st VIII!

I have been very impressed with the enthusiasm and commitment shown by all the rowers this term, new and old, and I want to thank all the committee for their hard work this term, especially Aleks Kissinger and Rob Gerlach for their management of the novices. And of course our coach Anu, without whom I would have no idea quite how many technical mistakes I make.

I look forward to seeing everyone for training again in 0th week, when we will be building from the strong foundations laid down this term and stepping up our game to face the challenges of Hillary; the Men's 1st VIII start at their highest ever position in Torpids and are within striking distance of Headship, whilst our other boats have the task of reclaiming places for Catz in the fixed divisions. And with the women defending the headship it promises to be an exciting term for Catz rowing.