| St Catherine's College Rowing Society |
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Vice Presidents: Don Barton, Richard Peters, Sir Matthew Pinsent CBE, Ben Sylvester. |
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| Newsletter#2, Michaelmas Term, 2008 (21st December) |
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[PDF version] |
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| St Catherine's College Rowing Society |
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Vice Presidents: Don Barton, Richard Peters, Sir Matthew Pinsent CBE, Ben Sylvester. |
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| Newsletter#2, Michaelmas Term, 2008 (21st December) |
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[PDF version] |
Contents |
Links |
| Fortunately the rain held off long enough for Christ Church Regatta to be run in full, giving our novices their chance to race. With the cancellation of this event last year, several of our senior rowers had yet to experience a side-by-side race; we also managed to fix that this term - see the Captains' reports. There is a historical piece on the Boat Club of 1993/94 and some of those who rowed that year contribute to the News from Alumni Section. Finally there was some Catz involvement in the OUBC Trial Eights Race, held a couple of weeks ago. And another reminder of the RS AGM & Dinner: 28th February 2009 (on the Saturday of Torpids). |
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Catherine Wherity, Women's Captain
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.
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Toby Smyth, Men's Captain
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, 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 OURCs timing [footnote: I have put back the extra minute that the OURCs timers appear to have lost in the Results - AD}, 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 Hilary: 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.
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In 1993/94 the Boat Club was still based in the old OUBC.
That year the Rowing Society and the College started
a joint fund-raising campaign for the new boathouse to replace our cramped
and dingy accommodation (completed just 3 years later).
Summer of 1994 was also the first occasion that we started employing coaches,
at least for our men's 1st VIII.
The women weren't exactly neglected, having the continued services of
Matt Pinsent on the bank.
The Men's Captain, Chris Mahne, also gained his Blue that year, but those were hard times for OUBC. The previous year, Cambridge had achieved a shock victory in the Boat Race. Much of this was due to their new long, flowing style, but they also used cleavers for the first time while Oxford had stuck with the traditional macons. People drew their own conclusions. Cambridge were to dominate for the remainder of the 1990s. The following extracts are from Rowing Society newsletters. 31st October, 1993 As the latest attempt to improve standards of coxing on the Isis, all coxes now have to be registered: a procedure involving attendance at a safety lecture after which they are issued with a licence bearing their photograph and a number (presumably all 1st VIII coxes have '00' numbers judging on past performances). I'm not convinced it's going to make much difference ... 8th February, 1994 [after initial flooding] ... the river subsided just enough for the official launch of the new men's eight: Surrounded by Water . Given the main source of funds - Catz Bar - I'd have opted for Time for a Little Something , but the Naming-of-Boats Sub-Committee moves in mysterious ways. A couple of weeks later a set of ex-OUBC 'Hatchet' blades arrived (those meat-cleaver-shaped jobbies that Cambridge used to such good effect in the last Boat Race). Although they've been around for less than 2 years, about a third of Oxford men's 1st VIIIs have already switched over to using them, but only a couple of women's 1st VIIIs. This is based on sound sexuofiscal rather than biomechanical principles, i.e. most colleges will happily spend large amounts of money on their men's crews but not on their women's. |
27th March, 1994 [referring to the bumps charts] ... As you can see by the steep descents of some crews, there was there was enough mayhem in just one day to last the rest of the week, but the apparently innocuous exchange of bumps at the top of Men's Division IV conceals the worst of it: four out of the top five crews in that division actually sank. All of this was in the benign stream conditions on Wednesday. Faced with such an exhibition of coxing skills, the officials didn't have the heart to subject the crews to the added hazard presented by the fast stream which lasted the rest of the week [further racing was cancelled]. 15th May, 1994 With a new boat, new blades, decamping to Wallingford to train, and Chris Mahne set to be the first man with a Blue [footnote: It was later pointed out that he was the first rowing Blue, we'd already had athletics and rugby Blues in the boat.] ever to row in the Catz 1st VIII, there's only one more thing that could be added - they're also employing a professional coach this term: Tim Bramfitt, the OUBC assistant head-coach. This has only been possible thanks to a one-off donation from the Rowing Society - it's not the sort of thing we can afford to do regularly - but hopefully it will instil some new ideas into the crew which will filter down through the rest of the Boat Club. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Three past and present Catz oarsmen lined up at the start of this year's
Tideway Trial Eights Race on 11th December.
Two were sitting in the stroke seats of the opposing crews:
Ante Kusurin, now at Kellogg College in Bear while the
Bull crew had this year's President, Colin Smith.
Completing the trio, at no.4 in Bear was
Martin Walsh from last year's Isis boat.
In good conditions, a close race ensued but Bear led most of the way and eventually ran out winners by 1½ lengths. The umpire was that famous character from Boat Race history: Boris Rankov. It is now customary for the designated Boat Race umpire also to officiate in both the preceding Oxford and Cambridge Trial Eights races, so he'll be back in March. |
It also looks likely that, one way or another, Catz might be reclaiming our grip on the OUBC stroke seat: last year was the first year since 2000 that the OUBC stroke seat wasn't occupied by a current or former Catz man. Kusurin (in 2007) and Smith (in 2004) are actually both former Blue Boat strokes, but neither will mind where they're sat this year as long as they win. |
St Catherine's College 
Oxford University Rowing Clubs 
St Catherine's College Boat Club
St Catherine's Rowing Society
![[Catherine Wherity]](rsmt082b.jpg)
![[Toby Smyth]](rsmt082c.jpg)
