The Boat Club performance, however, was memorable for very different reasons; three of the four boats getting 'spoons' and not one of those making it out of the Gut. The Women's 2nd Eight also never made it out of the Gut, although most days that was because they actually got bumps. Indeed they were Catz' first bumps in Eights since the opening day of Eights 2023. Nevertheless, Catz finished bottom of the table with a net loss of 12 places over the 4 days.

In this issue we have results (yes, we shall go through them) photos, crew lists and the Captains reports.

On the Saturday evening after Eights I attended the Boat Club dinner (held at Brown's) where the winner of this year's Ben Sylvester Award was announced, Mal Spencer gave an encouraging speech on behalf of the alumni, and spirits were remarkably high. What was that Kipling quote again? Ah yes; time for some exceedingly good cake.

It was a much better term of rowing this Trinity with river conditions allowing for lots of outings on the river and less time in the erg room. Coming off the back of a successful training camp we were keen to translate our improvements over to the Isis.

Hugo Cooper

Regular trips down the locks to Radley and Abingdon got lots of mileage in for our crews and avoided some of the chaos that good weather brings to our home stretch. 2k testing early in the term influenced crew selections for Eights and once these were decided we squeezed in as many outings as possible around revision and exams.

The end of term saw lots of sculling and crews entering for Oriel regatta, with three Catz crews going out to race on a nice summer's day. With lots of returners next year all the boys are keen to turn things around for next season.

Valentina Antonaccio-Guedes

This past term was an intense one for the women’s side. Many of our rowers participated in the Sculling Camp, gaining valuable experience in smaller boats such as the single and double sculls. We also competed in the ISL, where we placed third overall with a time of 5:14.5 — just behind Lincoln, who finished first with a time of 5:07.5.

Although we unfortunately received spoons during Summer Eights, the crew stayed positive and showed strong teamwork throughout the campaign.

The women's 2nd Eight had a crazy Summer VIIIs. They started strong bumping St Antony’s II by Donnington bridge in their first race, only to have steering issues in their second race and end up in a tree at the exit of the gut. They recovered from this and came back to bump St~Antony’s II again and Mansfield II in their last race. All in all it was a super fun bumping campaign for the girls.

From some of those who nominated him ...

Despite only learning to cox at the beginning of the year, JP has done a lot in his role as captain of coxes, offering an invaluable support to the many novice coxes at Catz. Always eager to improve, JP has jumped in to cox a large number of outings on both the women’s and the men’s sides. In addition to this, JP has always been a friendly and welcoming face, significantly contributing to the atmosphere of the entire boat club

JP has put a huge amount of effort into learning to cox this year and generally supporting the boat club. Considering how rough the weather/river has been this year, the number of outings he's managed to get under his belt as a novice is something of a miracle. On the Bled training camp, he coxed all day every day, and essentially became a coach.