It's now 157 days since the last 'Green Flag' and, although the river is dropping, we might have to wait until the other side of Easter before we see it again. By comparison, the Great Washout of 2019/20 started a week earlier but was over by 21st March. (Two days later the Covid lockdown came into force.)

Freya Waterworth

After some land training due to the river flooding, we went to Dorney for the day, having pre-empted the extensive river closures. This proved to be a successful and useful day with lots of race piece practice and getting our novice coxes some water time, prepping for Torpids at this point.

Once the river opened again, we managed to get a few outings in and raced in IWL-D before the river closed again.

After that, we moved back to erg training, maintaining strong numbers and were trying to remain optimistic about Torpids before they were cancelled. We continued to have land training until the end of term looking forward to Summer Eights. Hopefully the next report will be longer and include more (and successful) racing.

James Farmborough

We started Hilary with two weeks of land training (the river closed for flooding), getting our first water sessions of term on a trip to Eton Dorney Lake.

Soon after, the river opened, and with Torpids quickly approaching, we focussed on maximising the little water time we had left. The squad showed strong commitment, especially our novices who made good progress despite only having had a handful of water sessions this year.

Unfortunately, as more rain came down, the river reclosed, OURCs decided to cancel Torpids, and we finished the term without seeing any racing.

We look forward to (a hopefully dry) Trinity term, and finally getting to put all our land training to good use on the river.

Two Catz students have been selected: Freddy Orpin, a Blue from last year, is now at no.4 in Isis while newcomer Luca Nadig is no.6 in the lightweight crew.

For the men's race, if you look past Cambridge's five returning Blues to Oxford's one, you'd note that the new faces in the Oxford boat have considerable previous experience. Neither Oxford nor Cambridge has raced in open competition, but both have taken on Leander and Oxford Brookes (the top two crews in yesterday's Head of the River Race) in private fixtures and, on the whole, Oxford seem to have performed better than Cambridge.

I'm afraid I have no information on the lightweights.

This year's Boat Race 'story' will no doubt focus on the sisters, a pair from Oxford and a pair from Cambridge who, having rowed together for their Universities now find themselves in opposing camps. In particular, Helen Nielsen-Scott, former Catz women's captain, has been selected for Blondie so she'll be racing her older sister, stroking Osiris. One benefit of the great N-S divide is that it might persuade the TV people cover at least some of the Osiris-Blondie race (immediately following the Women's Blue Boats).

Phil Penketh (M.76), recently retired from the Pharmacology department at Yale, has been going through his old papers and sent me a copy of the Catz programme produced for Eights 1979. (Don't snigger — a black-and-white photocopier represented the highest level of technology available to students at the time. But we were happy.)

This was a record year for the Boat Club: we had 9 crews competing in Eights — two more than any other college — yet still no boathouse to call our own. Our boats were on rented racks in the old OUBC (on the site of the present Univ boathouse), but for Eights we put up a marquee on Christ Church meadow, next to where the barge was moored (which, by then, was off limits due to its fragile state). The Captain, Rob Hughes, used the programme to make this point:

After several years of great effort trying to save the barge it was was finally decided at the beginning of the year that it was more of a liability than an asset. As such this landmark of rowing on the Isis will shortly be no more, it having been sold. On the brighter side its future is probably now secure and within a year or so it should again be fit for use, but not for us!

This being the case the question of a replacement permanent residence for the Boat Club and its spectators comes to mind. The marquee arrangements provide a reasonable temporary substitute for Eights but at a cost of approximately £3000 a year for just four days this cannot be considered as a permanent solution. We are thus drawn inevitably to consider the possibility — yes you've guessed it — of the building of a boathouse for the College and the Boat Club. This suggestion has always been met with cries of 'but what of the expense' and 'where do you build it?' However, over the past few years there has built up an acute shortage of racking space at the OUBC, where we share facilities with six other colleges, due to the expansion of women's and graduate rowing. This means that sooner or later someone, somewhere, will have to build. Since St Catherine's, together with Wadham and St Peter's, are the colleges without their own boathouse it is clear that it is with them that the responsibility lies, although it is clear that the graduate colleges would also benefit from joining a corporate effort.

Catz marquee in Eights 1979 (Photo from N Taylor)

The 1979 men's 1st Eight: Nick Taylor (B), Ed Parker-Jervis, Mike Halson, Tony van de Vusse, John Greenway, Joe Quinsey, Jon Wilmshurst, Rob Hughes (S), Paul Spedding (C). Photo from Rob Hughes.

It is, of course, cooperation that is the key to the formulation of any realistic plan to provide facilities for all clubs at a reasonable cost to each. Exactly how plans should be co-ordinated is a big question but it has been suggested that Jim Railton (University Sports Officer) and the Senior Treasurers' Committee should be approached. However, 'back at the ranch' as it were, the College itself must be convinced of the importance of this possibility and persuaded to put all its effort into it. On this note it should perhaps be pointed out that a fifth of the College now rows regularly and this year we have managed to get nine crews on in Summer Eights, two more than any other college. Indeed, we have as many women's crews as any of the women's colleges and only Oriel and St Edmund Hall have more men's crews. As such I believe that it is about time that the College took a realistic view of its responsibilities and lead the way in relieving what is becoming an ever-increasing problem.

The Rowing Society was formed 5 years later and by 1997 we finally had our own boathouse at Longbridges.

Casting an eye over the 1979 crew lists, pausing only briefly to note the appearance of K Skinner in the men's 2nd VIII and A Dudhia in the 5th, I realise that the women's 4th VIII — the one crew which failed to row on — contains more than its fair share of Wikipediated members. At 7 is Cathy Panter-Brick, Professor of Anthropology and head of Morse College at Yale (has she met Phil?). At 2, Carolyne Larrington, Professor of Medieval European Literature and fellow of St John's, Oxford, specialist in Norse mythology and (clearly inspired by her time pulling an oar in a Catz boat) a former President of the Viking Society. And finally, in the bow seat, an aspiring young novellist by the name of Jeanette Winterson. I recall an article in which she wrote that, newly arrived in Oxford with just a deeply unfashionable cagoule by way of a coat, she always felt a bit self-conscious amongst her more conventionally attired fellow students. Apart, that is, from the Boat Club.

Jim's now back in Oxford and (after a family vote, I heard), once again clean-shaven. Which is a shame because I'd been planning to greet him with 'Arr — Jim lad!'. He's still not sorted out that beached pontoon outside the Univ boathouse, though.

Jim Ronaldson (left) and Ian Davies shortly after landing.

• 19:06 Augustin Wambersie (Blue 19–21,Isis 22)
• 19:17 Nicholas Brodie (Isis cox 05–06, OUBC 07)
• 19:22 Zac Abel (Lightweights 23)