M1 Day 1 – Andrew Tucker

After a strong Torpids campaign and lead-up to Summer Eights, expectations were high for the M1. Day 1 saw us chasing a strong Merton crew ahead. Unfortunately, Merton bumped St Hugh’s before Donny Bridge resulting in an uneventful (but strong) row over with a lot of clear water in front of and behind us. Special mention must be made of Finlay’s aggressive coxing lines resulting in an unfortunate tangle with an unsuspecting goose and a paint removal job done on an even more unsuspecting houseboat. Fortunately, no junior kayakers were out on the Isis today on the racing line because Fin would undoubtedly have shown them no mercy either! The M1 looks forward to chasing down Hugh’s tomorrow!

M1 Day 1 – Isaac Hilsley

We knew today was going to be a tough one. We had to catch Merton before Merton caught Hugh’s if we were going to stand a chance to get blades. Unfortunately, despite a quick start and a front-loaded race, holding rate 40, we couldn’t get the bump in before Merton caught Hugh’s, within around 30 seconds. The crew is disappointed, but we rowed a very strong race, and there was nothing we could have done. We’ll be out for revenge on Thursday- hopefully, it will be a short one… FTD.

W1 Day 1 – Amy Holguin

Hertford W1 went into Day 1 full of excitement (plus a good dose of nerves!) After an encouraging warm-up, we positioned ourselves onto our bungline. A strong start later, we settled on to our racing rhythm, with Oriel behind us nowhere near. Alas just after passing Donnington Bridge, a klaxon was sounded putting an end to our chances of catching New. While this was evidently not the result we had wanted, we go into Day 2 with renewed excitement and confidence.

M2 Day 1 – Will Jeys

Going into the first day of torpids for M2, we were mildly confident that we would get the bump – and indeed, soon after Longbridges Wolfson conceded. We could feel the adrenaline building up at the bungline with LMH one place downstream and Wolfson right head. It was not helped by a houseboat meandering slowly down past the lined up crews – the legendary Jim got us pointing in a perfect position before the race was postponed and it was certain we would be head of the river if we had started then.
It wasn’t the cleanest race ever, certainly a few small crabs were caught (although hardly anyone noticed, weirdly), although we did get the bump. We are not satisfied with just one though – BLADES!!
Off to face Brasenose tomorrow, bring it on.

W2 Day 1 – Emily Ryan

Bit of drama before getting on the river as Mansfield II boat collided with an incoming Men’s Div V boat – they had to take it back to the boat house and check it so we were delayed getting onto the river and starting our warm up. Rowed straight up into the gut bypassing our planned warm-up routine to get to bung line on time. Everyone was quite nervous so Clare was talking to us about random things in the boat E.g. her favourite sandwich in Oxford to assuage our nerves. Tom our bung line man has us nicely lined up and ready to go. He kept us next to the bank a little longer than normal because it was quite a windy day.

With a minute to go, we were sat tall, heads in the boat eyes forward. Klaxon went off – we started, was a little bit of a panicked/rushed start as we were gunning to catch Hugh’s who were ahead of us but soon got into a good rhythm and caught them just as we came out of the gut and were turning towards Longbridges. Great result and it got Eights off to a really good start! We started as we meant to go on.