Rain!

It has been a wet July but last night was just silly. Here are some pix.

From Drop Box

The willow downstream of the Fort St George bridge has gone in, nearly (but, we think, not quite) blocking traffic.

Apparently the little bridge there is damaged too.

From Drop Box

Peterhouse fours shed is distinctly wet underfoot, though it looked to me as though Wild Thing was OK. The view from outside shows that the main boathouse, being higher, was OK.

From Drop Box

City looks damp. Lets hope they didn't leave anything on the floor! Lucky Duck is riding high.

And finally, just for me

• Beehives behind the UL are just clear of the water
• The path to Coton, flooded over Bin Brook (I think) by the Real Tennis courts.

Refs

* Amy provides the narrowboaters view (and some sympathy for town folk flooded) as does Pippin from Bottisham. * CN pix

Bedford Sprint Regatta

We went to Bedford Sprint Regatta - the ladies W1 in Dawn Treader as IM3 and Nov, in order to get at least two races; and me in Joy as MasC 1x. In this I continued the care in event selection that Will and I displayed so well at Peterborough, only worse: my opponent in the first round, a nice chap called Audinis, won two FISA gold medals in Poznam, and only the day before had won the MasD category at Henley Vets. Oddly enough, I didn't get past the first round (verdict: "easily"). However it was still fun, and afterwards I had a nice quiet scull under the finish bridge and further. But I learnt a useful lesson, which is: enter more than one category if you have the spare time.

My race was just before 1, and the ladies as IM3 were just after 3, leaving me time for tea and cake in Bedford's rather pleasant boathouse overlooking the river (jealous, moi?) and a quick browse of Hobbes. They were against Bedford Girls School, and despite a decent row ended up two lengths down. However, that was as IM3, so there was some hope for them as Novice at 4:30. That one was against Norwich, and I stood on the start bridge to video it, as you see. It looked about level as far as I could see, with Norwich perhaps slightly ahead, and alas they did win by 1 1/2 lengths in the end. So, no medals for us this time round.

Bedford is a nearby regatta and easy to get to. We really should have put some more boats in - the novice IV's looked quite ropey and distinctly beatable, and perhaps the pairs too :-)

A couple of pix, in case you don't know Bedford. This is a view of the start (oddly enough) taken from the right (embankment) bank. I rather likes the situation of the start-girl on her moored pontoon in the middle of the river.

After the start there is a slight curve around to the left (as you look down the course) that I should have studied more carefully, as a scull, though its clear enough for a coxed boat. I watched a City pair on the left (boathouse) bank nearly hit the bank on the corner.

And her is Joy, looking very bright and shiny and pleased with herself for getting a chance to go off Cam for what I suspect is the first time in ages.

Oh look, here is a view of the course I happened to take, because I liked the foreground of the pontoon. These are all with my poor quality camera phone, sorry. You see the bend in the course, and just at the end, on the right bank, you can just make out the rightmost low arch of the bridge - its a bit of a nightmare getting back through that arch.

There is lots of nice space to warm up after the bridge, and Star Bedford is down there too, and several km of quiet river after that.

The Ladies start as IM3. No-one can ever sit bolt-upright at the start, not even the lovely young girls from Bedford Girls School, and they have probably studied Deportment and Bearing.

Peterborough

We took a ladies (novice) IV and a mens (masters B) pair to Peterborough on Sunday 27th May; for the usual convoluted reasons we couldn't get more than that. The full results are here. To spare you the suspense: the ladies got through their heat, and then came third in the final. They were 15 secs off the leaders, but only 6 secs off second, so it was exciting. Here they are in the final.

Mel, get your head up. Though who am I to say such a thing, since I stare at my hands all the time - well, if you don't stare at your hands, how do you know whether they are the right height above the saxboard, or rising up to the catch nicely?

Anyway, enough of them, "what about the men?", I hear you cry. I thought you'd never ask.

Inevitably, I'm going to write about the mens pair because, well, I was in it. It was quite fun to go "alone" in that this was the first off-cam race we'd entered (well, actually, it was about our 6th outing in the pair together, and the first race we'd ever done, but hopefully you see what I mean) just-by-ourselves, without someone in the club organising it for us. We were on a City trailer, and carefully loaded up on Thursday night, because it was going up on Friday afternoon. However, on Saturday, we realised we hadn't been quite as careful as we'd thought - we'd left the seats in. Oh-err. But an email to City brought back the reassuring news that the seats were still attached, so all was well. Or so we thought. But when we got there on Sunday... err, oh dear, only one seat was there. I suppose we were lucky even one stayed on. So the intended we're-there-well-in-time-and-can-relax-and-spectate turned into a rather frantic scrabble to find a spare seat. Luckily Peterborough could lend us one. So we had our practice outing on the Neme, which turns out to be even wigglier than the Cam, and got back in time to see the ladies final.

Then it was our turn. Backing down onto the start boat turned out to be possible. This was a masters B/C race, and we were the B, whilst our opponents were C - that meant they got a 5 seconds head start. Boo hiss. This was because while I'm nearly old enough to be your grandfather be masters D, Will is so insanely youthful (though dissipated, of course) that he only just scrapes into masters A; and we average to B. So, the other boats start, and we're counted down the 5 seconds to our start. And, regrettably, we stayed at the back the whole way. Steering proved to be quite a challenge. Clonking our first lane-buoy woke me up with a bit of a start, and I paid more attention after that; but we spent some time not hitting the buoys only because we were so close that the oars went over the top. However, we were 16 secs (=11, remember) off the lead and 7 (=2, oh so close) off number 2; so I don't think we can blame our loss on the steering. Here we are, just crossing the finish line:

We look OK, I think, though just possibly I may be biased. Will isn't looking at his hands, but then again no-one is perfect. There is another one of us here and again Simon has contrived to take just the stroke when we went in perfectly together. And here we are looking Manly afterwards:

[Photo credit: Simon Emmings. Note that via some miracle of tech these pictures went from gmail via gplus to blogger without touching my harddisk, or at least I think and hope they have.]

ps: the new seat was £120 with VAT and carriage, and Andy Nicol kindly cut it down to size, and made me a cup of tea too (well actually Elspeth did). Anyway, the point is, don't leave your seats on during transit, bozo.

pps: oh yes, the other point: so, our recorded time was 4.04.5, but remember that has 5 secs added, so really 3:59.5, so we made it in under 4 mins, oh good. But then we looked at the results and realised that had we entered IM3 2-, we'd have been second, and only 2 secs behind the winners - that would have been a really exciting race to be in.

Your ergmeister shrieks

Here it is at last, the updated 30 minute ergo table. Feast your eyes.

Person          Raw  Weight Factor Adjusted

Steven A        8358 93     0.984  8,222.727
James H         8144 83     1.004  8,178.879
Chris F         8300 95     0.980  8,133.892
William C       7862 72     1.030  8,096.343
Chris W         7908 80     1.011  7,994.207
Dave R          7568 68     1.040  7,870.948
Simon E         7489 64     1.051  7,869.722
Will W          7650 80     1.011  7,733.395
Paul H          7531 74     1.025  7,718.501
Andy S          7606 90     0.990  7,527.776
Anne R          7076 65     1.048  7,416.197
William D       7534 94     0.982  7,397.566
Gary D          7250 83     1.004  7,281.050
Dave B          7099 78     1.015  7,208.679
Lorraine        6782 64     1.051  7,126.780

Source data is here. Only this season's scores are included. Before we get on to the 2k table, let me try to interest you in the running-the-head-course table, which so far has two entries:

Steven A     10:36   http://connect.garmin.com/activity/179505539
William C    11:26   http://connect.garmin.com/activity/178872251

The course end points are

• The Motorway (A14) bridge, upstream (town) side. Start line is where the concrete of the bridge turns into towpath grit.
• In Ferry Lane, about opposite the Green Dragon, metal lamppost with a "4" on it.

You can run it either way. At the corner near the beer tree where the path bifurcates, you have to take the (ever so slightly longer) path that stays nearer the river.

For comparison, the club record in an VIII is 9:30 I think.

And now for the 2k table.

Person          Raw   Weight Factor Adjusted

Steven A        6.648 95     0.980  6:47.05
James H         6.832 82     1.006  6:47.27
Chris F         6.800 95     0.980  6:56.33
William C       7.213 72     1.030  7:00.27
Will W          7.130 79     1.013  7:02.24
Dave R          7.350 68     1.040  7:04.03
Simon E         7.525 64     1.051  7:09.66
Paul H          7.427 72     1.030  7:12.70
Luca            7.657 75     1.022  7:29.30
Andy S          7.545 90     0.990  7:37.40
Rasmus          8.040 68     1.040  7:43.83
Anne R          8.152 65     1.048  7:46.66
Simon G         7.667 95     0.980  7:49.39
Harish          8.663 80     1.011  8:34.19

Some familiar faces there. Don't see yourself? Well send me a time / distance them. Note that the raw times are in decimal not mm:ss, sorry. And now for the "misc" table:

Person          Raw   Weight Factor Adjusted

Giulio          18:38 79     1.013  18:23

Refs

• Your HOTTmeister speaks
• Erging theory

Head of the Cam - results and round-up

The original Head of the Cam post got treated as a live document and updated as we went along. So this is a new post for the wrap-up.

Thanks to all our competitors, support, marshalls and umpires for making it a successful and fun day. We had a total of 860 rowing seats in 136 crews. The fastest crew was...

...yes, you guessed it, Caius. Congratulations. Fastest womens crew was, rather less expectedly, also Caius. They beat Downing by 14 seconds.

Full results are available from here (a number of people were kind enough to thank us for the speed of the results; its all thanks to googly docs). Video of the event is just going up as I speak at spannerspotter though it will be a while before its all up. For those of you who prefer the security and solidity of a PDF, this is the final results, sorted into time order.

Oh, and someone lost a pair of glasses in a kangol case on the towpath. If they are yours, do let me know [now reunited with their owner].

Issues

We didn't really have any serious issues - at least, we thought not. Hopefully you agree. Even the weather, whilst grey and occasionally a bit damp, spared us from downpours.

Turning boats back

We had to turn one, or perhaps two, boats back who were late for their division. Sorry about that, we don't do it lightly, and where possible we'll give you a chance to race in a later division. In at least one of the cases the boat was late because it had failed safety inspection: the heel restraints weren't in place and had to be put in place. Moral: check your boat is all in order in good time.

The Cow that could Swim

Half way through the race we were informed of a prodigy - a cow that could swim, on Stourbridge Common. We thought it best not to trouble you with that.

Improvements

We hope to make things even better next year - please feel free to email (headofthecam@gmail.com) with any suggestions. One thing I do want to do is to seed the draw better, probably by asking people to submit a recent head course time, or their own best guess.

Timing

Everything went well with the timing except the problem with boats 117 and 118, which was only resolved right at the end. Unfortunately it turned out to matter for the prizes for the W2 Mays. So let me bore you with the tedious details. Before I do that, the timesheets are available for div 1, div 2, div 3 and div 4. Feel free to look, but you won't learn much.

So, the sequence began with boat 115, Xpress MasB IV, which broke their rudder (they eventually and boldly started, and here is a nice pic of them trying to take Grassy with an improvised rudder, but they had to retire in the end). Their dropping out caused a hole in the start order, which got filled by Kings W1 (118) going off out of order ahead of Cantabs W IM3 (117). Not in itself a problem, but the start times and finish times as we got them looked like:

114 CCRC, CRA MasD 0:24:53 0:34:51 0:09:58
117 Cantabs, W2 IM3 0:23:31 0:37:57 0:14:26
118 Kings, W1       0:26:02 0:36:39 0:10:37
120 Cantabs, Mas E  0:26:54 0:38:38 0:11:44

You see the problem. Kings (it became clear) had started before Cantabs, indeed just before Cantabs, so 23:31 isn't a believeable start time; and Cantabs total time is implausibly slow. Eventually, after a considerable amount of indecision and hearing from both crews, we decided to go with Least Modification, and resolved the conflict by assuming the Cantabs 23 was really a 26. That fits with what the timings Kings coach gave us; and it also fits some times we got belatedly from video on Grassy: Kings had gained 18 secs on Cantabs by then. ps: Champs head vindicates us. Kings W1 did well there, too.

Refs

2011

The DIWLF boat does Oxford

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

To Ely and back

We were going to enter Boston - indeed, we did enter. But come the draw and we still hadn't found a trailer, and the reason became clear: there were no other crews going from Cambridge (other than Katherine and Anna-Rosa, who won their class; but they were in a double, and didn't need a trailer). It rather looks like the organisers hadn't publicised the change-of-date widely, and only had 1/3 the normal number of entries.

And so we thought: rather than all the faff of trailering there, why not "just" row to Ely and back, which is about the same distance (actually 51.5 km, starting from Queens's boathouse, over Boston's 50). And so we did:



That is our route, annotated, from the GPS trace. You'll see we stopped a bit: Baits Bite (5k) and Bottisham (10k) locks were necessary, as was the pint at the Cutter Inn at Ely. Upware (5 miles from anywhere pub; 15 k) was a lovely sprawled-in-the-grass-with-drinks stop on the way back, and I think we happened to stop to adjust footplates there on the way up. And then the formerly-Fish-n-Duck at the junction of the Old West river was another landmark, 20 k. Note that at some points where we had long stops (Ely, Upware on the way back) I stopped the watch, so you don't see the full gap.



Our proof that we really did get to Ely :-). and if that isn't proof enough, here is more:

My hands - taped to match my nail varnish. When oh when oh when will I learn to tape up my hands properly before getting blisters?	Paul's hands - worse than it looks from a distance. And he was taped up like an extra from The Mummy.	James Howard's mighty Blister of Doom. I added the arrow in case you missed it.

There is no picture of Will's hands - apparently, as a result of some odd formative experiences at Eton, he doesn't get blisters ;-).

John-from-Pippin was kind enough to let us through Bottisham lock both ways (side note: if you had no friend but you had the key, you could probably do it by letting the cox out at the landing stage, though the Cambridge side is awkward. It almost looked possible to get out on the bank before the stage, which (if possible) would be much quicker than waiting for the lock gates to move). And on the way back, he even more kindly lifted over a few cans of Old Speckled Hen in a net, and then mugs of tea for James and Will (not in a net).



Here we are in the lock, on the way up. James H has a somewhat worried expression, because I've insisted that James T stand up to take the picture, and (as you can see) we don't really have our blades out very far. I've cropped the picture to spare you the worst of my pallid chest - I rowed up Topless, though actually it wasn't warm despite the blazing sunshine, so I rowed back Topped.

The very last adventure of the day was discovering, half way down the reach, that we'd lost our rudder. Watching James's face was quite funny, as it slowly dawned on him that pulling the strings was doing nothing. But he then did an excellent job of coxing us back just with extra pulls from either side as required.



At the end, we could still smile (L to R: Paul Holland; William Connolley; James Howard; Will Wykeham. Front: James Tidy). Because we knew we were headed for the Fort. But how was it, overall? Fun, yes. An interesting excursion and definitely something different and something to remember. Hard work - we didn't just pootle along, or even back (the GPS says avg ~13 km/h on the way out, which is 2:18. And a bit lower on the way back - perhaps 12.5, which is 2:24. Tiredness, or difference in rover flow? Those GPS splits are about 5 pips worse than the impeller splits we were getting at the time). Would it have made a decent time if we'd been doing Boston? Hard to know - we wouldn't have got all the rests, so the split would probably have sagged somewhat from what we have here. We'll find out next time!

[Update: oh, and I forgot to mention: we got off to an appallingly bad start: as we passed under the Fort footbridge, having taken about 20 strokes, James H said "are we nearly there yet?" in a perfectly deadpan voice; I could hardly row for laughing for a minute.]

Refs

* GPS track