Churchill College Boat Club Michaelmas Term Newsletter December 2001

Churchill College Boat Club www.chu.cam.ac.uk/boatclub Michaelmas Term Newsletter December 2001

A Word From The Captains The 2001/02 Committee Both Zoe and I are looking forward to what promises to be a better period for the Overall & Men's Captain boatclub following the disappointments of Will Courtenay [email protected] last year. Women's Captain Zoe Jones [email protected] Perhaps most important for the boatclub as a whole is the announcement of a new sponsor. Men's Vice Captain This follows the sudden decision by Lucent David Thornalley [email protected] Technologies to terminate their support Women's Vice Captain earlier this year, due to their own financial Kim Tierney [email protected] difficulties. Men's Lower Boats Captain In addition, the club is also looking strong on Rich Mathias [email protected] the water, with unusually high numbers of Secretary seniors continuing to row this year, soon to Amanda Colabella [email protected] be challenged by a promising bunch of novices! Junior Treasurer Helen Russell [email protected] Will Courtenay and Zoe Jones Sponsorship Officer Andy Kimber [email protected] New Sponsor Equipment Officer Chris Saville [email protected] This term we are very pleased to welcome our new sponsor, Mr. Charles Claoué. Mr. Social Secretaries Claoué studied medical sciences at Churchill Allan Milne [email protected] College and was heavily involved in the Jenny Shaw [email protected] boatclub as both a rower and a cox. He Website Manager features twice on the May Board, coxing the Jeni Harper [email protected] Women’s IV in 1976 and the Men’s VIII in 1978. Key Dates in Michaelmas Term Mr. Claoué is a Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon with the National Health Service, Bedford Small Boats Head 14 Oct and in independent private practice. He is Sculling Camp 20-21 Oct also the owner of “Les Gites de Autumn Head 27 Oct Champagnoux” - two beautiful Gites in the Head of the River Fours 10 Nov heart of the Grande Champagne in France. Cam Winter Head 17 Nov Clare Sprints 22-24 Nov For more information on either the Novice Fairbairns 29 Nov Consultant Ophthalmic Surgery or the gites, Senior Fairbairns 30 Nov please visit Mr Claoué's web site at Fairbairns Dinner 1 Dec www.dbcg.co.uk. Novice Racing in Norwich 5 Dec

CCBC is proud to be supported by www.dbcg.co.uk Churchill College Boat Club Michaelmas Term Newsletter December 2001

Floods! New Women’s Lower Boat It seems that flooding is becoming a This term kicked off with the naming traditional part of Michaelmas term rowing, ceremony for the latest addition to the and this term was no exception! Churchill fleet, “Sweet Katie”, named after Mr. Claoué's wife. The boat is a second-hand On Sunday 21st October, the heavens opened wooden VIII bought from Leys School over and dropped an entire month’s worth of rain the summer to serve as a Senior Women’s 2nd in less than 24 hours! The boathouse was or 3rd boat. The arrival of the new boat means inaccessible for three days while the floods that the women have three decent boats for subsided but thankfully none of our boats or the forthcoming Lent and May Bumps. oars were damaged, despite the lower boats floating off their racks!

The naming ceremony for “Sweet Katie”

Sculling Camp The boathouse submerged, again

To increase the use of the scull and double, Senior Men the first ever sculling camp was organised to teach all senior rowers the art of sculling! The senior men spent the majority of Michaelmas term training in IVs, with a The sculling camp was run across two days, fixed First IV crew and a squad system for with everyone getting two hours of coaching the Second IV, due to awkward numbers. in yellow ‘banana boats’ (lent to us by Rob Roy Boat Club) followed by the scull. Our first race was the Bedford Small Boats Head on an exceptionally foggy morning (I couldn’t see the bridge arch until we were practically in it!) The First IV had an excellent row to finish 7th in the Senior 4 division, comfortably beating all other Cambridge entries. The Second IV also performed well, finishing 9th in the Novice Mark smiling nervously for the camera! division.

The two days were tremendously successful Work pressures meant that neither crew and featured only one capsize! Several could enter University IVs. Instead, our next rowers have continued with the sculling after race was the Head of the River Fours on the the camp so this should mark a new interest 10th November. Unfortunately, an argument in the use of small boats during future with a lamppost on the way to London left training. The boatclub would particularly like our First IV unrowable, forcing us to to thank Rob Oeffner for his help with compete in a plastic women’s IV borrowed arranging the use of the banana boats and his from the Free Press Boat Club! Fortunately coaching. unnaturally calm conditions saved us from being swamped as the boat sat perilously low

CCBC is proud to be supported by www.dbcg.co.uk Churchill College Boat Club Michaelmas Term Newsletter December 2001 in the water! The First IV put in a good performance to finish 316th out of 517 crews, Senior Women despite the unfamiliar boat. The Second IV also rowed extremely well finishing high Michelmas term began with some excellent amongst the few other second IVs IVs training, with three senior ladies IVs competing. hitting the cam. The term was full of races, including the Bedford Small Boats Head, and the Head of the River Fours on the Thames. It was fantastic to see such a surge of interest in ladies rowing, despite the flooding and high winds. Churchill were in fact the only college to take a ladies second IV to tideway.

On the Cam, the ladies First IV had an excellent win in the Cambridge Winter Head beating all other college ladies IVs that entered. This success could not be repeated in Fairbairns unfortunately, with the ladies First IV coming 7th and the ladies Second IV coming 3rd out of all the second IVs.

Halfway through term, ladies Third IV The First IV at Bedford formed an VIII with four extra novices, and managed to compete in Fairbairns despite For Fairbairns, the First IV was united with requiring several subs. They definitely the best of the Second IV crew, and seemed to be the boat enjoying themselves strengthened by Andy Adams – his first the most at boatclub dinner! college rowing since winning with CULRC earlier this year. Despite only two weeks At the end of the term we had a 2K ergo training together before the race, the crew competition, with Becky Hughes being the performed superbly, finishing 7th out of all fastest novice (incidentally beating all the the College crews (ignoring Alumni crews!) seniors as well!). and only 22 seconds behind the joint winners, Emma and Downing. This result Zoe Jones bodes extremely well for next term as we beat three of the four crews ahead of us in Novice Men Lents! The novice term of Michaelmas 2001 turned The Second VIII consisted of the remainder out to be the most memorable in many years. of the Second IV crew and others joining for As always, there were a large number of men the last couple of weeks. Despite their wanting to row and we were able to put out relative lack of training, the crew finished three decent men’s novice crews. New rules th well in 36 overall just behind the second on early mornings meant they were restricted boats of Emma, Jesus, LMBC and Christs. to three outings a week but they soon picked up the basics and their prowess on the river In addition, these results mark the amazing was soon apparent. progress the men’s boatclub has made over the last year, considering that only a single Despite a disappointing result for Novice A senior Men’s IV competed in Fairbairns last in the Queen’s Ergos Competition (I’d rather year and finished last in its division! not say how bad!) I was confident of their technical abilities and they easily got through Will Courtenay the first round of Clare sprints. Unfortunately they caught a crab in the second round after being several lengths clear and were

CCBC is proud to be supported by www.dbcg.co.uk Churchill College Boat Club Michaelmas Term Newsletter December 2001 disqualified for being on the wrong side of by the encouraging (?!) anecdotes of the the river. heaviest cox Churchill has ever seen at nearly 14 stone.

The extra weight in the boat seemed to cause no bother to the crew when it came to the races. At Clare sprints Churchill ladies’ Novice VIII easily took out their opposition, Caius A in the first round despite catching a Men’s Novice A storm away from their crab and having to hold it up completely half opposition during Clare Sprints way through the race. Unfortunately they were unable to continue with the competition Novice A’s finest moment though came due to the Blues hockey commitments of two when they unveiled there outfits for of the crew but after such a storming race in Fairburn’s – bright pink T-shirts several sizes the first round I remain confident they would too small with their nick names emblazoned have gone on to do well. on their backs! As I worried that they were not taking the race seriously, the crew were calmly preparing themselves for an explosive race that saw them finish 11th overall, an impressive result for the amount of training.

These good results were repeated further down the order by Novice B and C, who finished 6th and 8th amongst their peers respectively.

Finally, an arrangement with the University of East Anglia saw a hybrid novice crew The ladies’ Novice VIII, just after thrashing travel down to Norwich to race against First Caius A in Clare Sprints and Third and two novice UEA crews. Despite extremely windy conditions, our The culmination of the term’s rowing came crew flew (almost literally!) along the course in the form of the Fairbairns Cup where to a comfortable win, finishing the term in again the results were a good reflection of style! the effort that had gone in to training throughout the term. The Churchill ladies’ Novice VIII came joint 13th with a very respectable time and also beating men’s Novice C!

The novice crew preparing for launch in Norwich

Dave Thornalley and Rich Mathias

Novice Women

The season started well with plenty of interest in novicing, especially from the Freshers. There was plenty of enthusiasm despite the early mornings, largely inspired

CCBC is proud to be supported by www.dbcg.co.uk Churchill College Boat Club Michaelmas Term Newsletter December 2001

Kim Tierney To Find Out More…

This brief newsletter can’t include all the exciting things that CCBC is up to so for more want more news, results and photos, check out our website: www.chu.cam.ac.uk/boatclub

CCBC is proud to be supported by www.dbcg.co.uk