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Fairbairn Cup 2010-11

22nd January 2011
Event: 
Fairbairn Cup

Snow hit Cambridge days before the efforts of Novice and Senior crews throughout the term would be put to test in possibly the longest race on the Cam. This year, Fairbairns took place on 2nd and 3rd December, with 4 Novice, 3 Senior and 2 Alumni crews competing.

The senior event was postponed due to ice and was reorganised for the start of the Lent term with the new M1, W1 and W2 crews for the term racing.

For full results, see:

http://jcbc.jesus.cam.ac.uk/Fairbairns/results.php
Men's 1st VIII Lents 2010-11
4
14:20.8

Naturally the M1 crew from Michaelmas term was very disappointed not to get to race Fairbairn’s after training for it all term. However, we had many promising results throughout the term and I am sure the crew would have performed well if the original race had gone ahead.

After a successful pre-term training camp we were able to boat our approximate M1 for Lents to race Fairbairn’s with Ali Donaghy subbing in for Paul Verhaak. We had one short outing prior to the race and went into the race interested to see what we could do. We started relatively strongly and settled into a rhythm that felt maintainable. Every time it started to slip our cox, Rose, was on at us to take it up again. It was hard to gauge what level other crews will be at for a race right at the start of term so we weren't sure how well we'd done until we saw the results - joint fourth was a very satisfactory result and one which will give us confidence going into the rest of the term.

charlie.heron


Women's 1st VIII Lents 2010-11
Senior Women's VIIIs
7
16:40.9

The race was only our second outing of term so no one expected beautifully technical rowing, nevertheless, the race plan was well executed and our technique held together for the duration of the race.

We rate capped at rate 28 until the new footbridge around 3 or 4 mins in to the course; this set up a long stroke with good rhythm which we maintained when taking the rate up as we proceeded down the course.

The course was mentally split in to sections from there on and we had up ones at the beginning of each these sections. Towards the end of the course these were treated as “power on” calls to bring the boat speed up.

Despite a technically sounds row, it lacked 100% commitment and power; this is something which clearly showed in the results. We finished the course in a time of 16:40.9 which placed us 7th fastest women’s senior VIII around 50 seconds behind of the winners Newnham.

Obviously there is always plenty to work on this early in term but attack is something we hope to focus on come the Head to Head.

lucy.griffin


Women's 2nd VIII Lents 2010-11
Women's 2nd Senior VIII
1
17:00.6

This was our first race together as a crew, and only the second time we had rowed all together, so our success is very encouraging.
We had a good race and worked well as a crew, but the consensus was that we could have pushed ourselves harder and put a bit more power down, which is a good thing to have learnt for future races.
However, we were the fastest in our division, which bodes well for future races this term and Lent bumps.
Thank you to our Bank Party, and well done to the crew.

megan.moore


Women's Novice 2nd VIII Fairbairns 2010-11
Novice Womens VIIIs
18
09:06.1

We started 8th in the division being chased down by a very strong Newnham NW1.

After a bit of a shaky start due to being hurried along by the marshals we settled into a nice rhythm with quite a lot of power in the boat. Occasionally this dropped off but an up two on the legs brought the power back. We reached Chesterton and heard Newnham calling us to take the corner wide, so we did. Unfortunately their cox took a bad line and also ended up coming out wide too and crashed into us. We managed to quickly get straight and have a race restart, however, we’d lost quite a bit of boat speed. About 10 strokes later we clashed blades with Newnham again but after they pulled ahead we had a some clear water to get the boat speed back up again to take us to the finish. Overall it was a strong performance by the crew and we came 18th overall and were the 3nd in novice NW2, which was an excellent ending to a term of hard training.

rachel.hyman