Hertford-Only Novice M Boat

Day One: enthusiastically remembered by Finlay Jordan

The Christ Church regatta was our first ever race being a novice crew, after a long term a term of learning how to row on lots of early morning outings we were ready to show what we could do. We arrived nice and early for a warmup with our coach, we practised some finer details of our race start and strategy and was then ready to get the boat out. The river was hectic, and we slowly made our way to the start line thoroughly entertained by Tanzil’s many Instagram photos.

We met our opponents, Merton college, and lined up on the start line, and with no time for nerves to build the umpire called the start.  We got off to a great start- one of the best we had done so far, and within a few lengths we were ahead. We started to settle down into race pace (even if it was a little quick at times!) and really got a good rhythm going and with that we pulled further and further ahead. Of course, being Christ Church Regatta, a few crabs were caught, but the crew recovered well and kept the rhythm going. As we crossed the finish line we were lengths ahead of Merton. Feeling rather pleased headed back to the boathouse, with newly found experience of racing we discussed what went well how we could improve going into day 2 of the regatta where we would face St Regents Park and a longer course.

Day Two: nostalgically summarised by Andrew Tucker

After a successful Day 1, we were eager to capitalise on the momentum gained (maybe a bit too eagerly for some with our stroke, Luca, nearly taking a swim on the jetty and cox, Finlay, going over his handle bars on High Street before the race). After a good warm-up on the water and some classic “sports psychology” motivational quips from Tanzil, we were ready to compete over the longer course from Longbridges against a strong Regent’s Park crew.

A small crab and a generally poor start meant that we were a length and a half down from early in the race. Some really consistent and strong rowing through the middle of the race saw us claw into their lead, drawing almost level with them as we passed our screaming captain and Hertford spectators outside Univ, but it wasn’t to be with further crabs on the final straight dashing any last hopes we had of snatching a victory.

Whilst very disappointed not to progress any further in the Regatta, there was a sense of pride in how far we’d come as a crew in such a short space of time and we quickly realised that we had been knocked out by a very strong Regent’s crew (who would go on to finish third overall). It was felt that some of our best rowing ever as a crew came in the middle section of the course, but that our consistency let us down. This capped off a very successful and enjoyable term of novice rowing!

Joint Hertford-Benet’s Novice M Boat