With the wind howling all around us as we marshalled in a strong stream, M1 were well aware of the tricky conditions we faced in our third day of racing. Knowing that we were unlikely to have any pressure from Jesus II behind us, we focused all our thoughts on Caius II ahead, and importantly a below par LMBC II in front of them.
As the deafening gun echoed under the Motorway Bridge around us, we started solidly winding to the low forties before settling into a strong rhythm, quickly drawing within distance to Caius II. To our dismay however, Caius\\’s bank party were already signalling two whistles – they\\’d drawn to within a canvas of LMBC II, and were close to victory, all before first-post corner.
With the horrible threat of a row-over into a stonking headwind looming large, we made our move winding again to 42 and a length off their stern, hoping that Caius II would be unable to withstand our relentless assault on their stern.
We got lucky, and in the words of our coach Michael Burcher, Caius II crashed \\’a lot\\’ into the inside of first-post corner – whether it was due to our renewed attack flustering their rowers, or perhaps their cox was too busy thinking up her next article for the TAB, we\\’ll never know, but I\\’d like to think that our gargantuan push had something to do with it. All that was left was for us to fly past their nearly stationary boat, and watch the rest of the division go by.
With \\’it\\’ all to play for, tomorrow will be a decisive day. Caius II will be looking for revenge, and LMBC II must be wetting themselves.
