A month ago the 2018 Boat Race squads made their first competitive appearance at the Fours Head, which presents an opportunity for some considered analysis followed by wild extrapolation towards next March.

Finally, with sadness, we note the death of Bruce Mitchell (M.54), one of the founding members, and former Chairman, of the Rowing Society.

Upper Thames Autumn Head 29th October
Div 1: 158 crews raced
1st	9:03.94	Thames RC	1st/6 Club 8
3rd	9:17.80	Oriel	3rd/6 Club 8
4th	9:26.88	U.West of England	1st/8 Academic 8
9th	9:35.37	St Catherine's (M1)	3rd/8 Academic 8

Nephthys Regatta 17th November
Women's Senior VIIIs (8 entries)
Q/F	St Catherine's (W1) Lost to Keble	1 L

Isis Winter League B 26th November
32 crews raced
=1st	4:28	St Catherine's A (M1)	1st/13 M8
=1st	4:28	St Catherine's C (M1)	1st/13 M8
8th	5:14	St Catherine's MD (M2)	8th/13 M8
16th	5:34	St Catherine's ME (M3)	12th/13 M8

It's been a good start for the women's senior squad this year. With two new fantastic coaches in charge (Chloe Laverack and Matthias Mergenthaler) we've been able to come on leaps and bounds as a boat. Although a slight mishap with a seat prevented us from performing at our absolute best at IWL-A in late October, improvements continued to be made all term, and all nine rowers have been extremely pleased with our progress. We can't wait to prove our worth at Torpids next term!

Rachel Ibbetson

The Novice squad has been very popular this year, with one boat being entered to Christ Church Regatta and some good races rowed. Next term we're looking forward to the addition of the novices to the senior squad, and we're excited to see how SCCBC women can continue to develop into a force to be reckoned with!

After a successful Trinity term and a long summer break, the returning men were itching to get back into the boat again. A couple of the old guard from last year said farewell, but their seats were taken up by a new batch of experienced oarsmen and coxes. The Novice squad also looked promising in its size and attitude.

Oliver Berry

The first competition was Upper Thames Autumn Head for a scratch M1 crew. For the first race together for some of the crew the performance was rough but gutsy, especially the start, however it wasn't enough to overturn Oriel's 9:17 compared to our 9:35, placing us 9th and them 3rd. As one of the potential crews who will be in our crosshairs come Torpids, the gap is something that we are endeavouring to make up come March.

On the Novice side we were able to field 2 crews for Christ Church Regatta (the titles A and B were just to distinguish them — they were matched crews). The B crew got beaten by a strong Exeter A crew in what was a very close race however we later found out that the Exeter crew was `friendly', having a couple of senior oarsmen in it, meaning the B crew survived another day. The A crew easily dispatched Merton A crew, no surprises there. The next day however saw the B crew knocked out by Magdalen A due to a crab caught 100m into the race that was never really recovered from, and the A crew followed suit (minus the crab) against Wolfson A in what was a strong race against the eventual winners of the event.

... compared with the rather more mundane actualité experienced by the novice men.

Finally, we managed to get both the Novices and Senior men out for their first joint race together at IWL B. M1, with a couple super subs confusing the OURCs entry system, managed to come top of the event, M2 came 8th in what was a big step forward for the mainly novice crew against entirely senior opposition, and M3 came 16th.

With Michaelmas term over, the Men's squad is looking ahead to what could be an exciting Hilary term.

Below are the results, plotted in time along the x-axis, and as a fraction of the speed of the fastest boat in each category on the y-axis.

Oxford & Cambridge results in the 2017 Fours Head.

Oxford's men were also outnumbered (4 to 5) and, in the coxed fours, outraced: Cambridge won the men's event, 13~s ahead of Oxford's top boat, with two more Cambridge boats behind them. However, the Oxford coxless four finished well ahead of their Cambridge counterparts.

Over the past week the squads have had their Trials Races (apart from OUWBC, who have postponed theirs until the New Year). The real crew selection process doesn't start until January, and at this stage of training there are always a number of key rowers out through illness or injury. So the main purposes of these races seems to be to give the prospective coxes a chance to show off how much they can get away with, and for the designated Boat Race umpires to show them how little (Matt Pinsent will be umpiring the Women's Boat Race, by the way).

At this point the men's Boat Race looks to be a close thing but Oxford do have the better reputation for moving up through the gears. As for the women, I fear Cambridge may already have clear water.

It went well for our men's 1st and 2nd boats: both up 3 places in Torpids, followed by Blades in Eights. A big factor in this was undoubtedly the 2016 trip to Japan, which encouraged a core of oarsmen to keep training through the long vacation, and they sustained that momentum all the way through to Summer Eights. The 1st Torpid is back at 4th on the river — equalling its highest ever position — and, after a bit of blip a couple of years ago, the 1st Eight is now back in Division I. The 2nd boat is also close to its 10-year high in both Torpids and Eights. A concern is that only two of last year's Michaelmas Term novices were persuaded to set foot in a boat again — that fact may come back to bite the men next summer.

Catz Crews: Current Positions
(& highest– lowest positions, 2008–2017)
	Men		Women
	2017	Range	2017	Range
1st Torpid	4th	(4–9)	27th	(1–27)
2nd Torpid	42nd	(41–61)	—	(47–57)
3rd Torpid	—	(62–68)	—	(50–55)
1st Eight	10th	(6–15)	21st	(13–24)
2nd Eight	42nd	(40–49)	74th	(44–74)
3rd Eight	80th	(73–89)	—	(75–79)

For the women, the 1st Torpid dropped 10 places to its lowest ever position. Part of the problem was that half the boat were novices. In the past, and for other Colleges, this wouldn't have been anything particularly unusual but the Catz women's novice programme has gone seriously awry of late (the last win in a side-by-side race in Christ Church Regatta was in 2013, since then: 0/16). By Eights, a few more experienced oarswomen were found to stabilise things for the 1st boat, but the 2nd boat continued to drop and is now at its lowest ever position. But at least this term they've had a senior VIII in regular training.