They say, as Pete has said in his W1 reports, that good crews bump 3 times, and lucky crews get blades. Friday was our day to prove that we were really a good crew, and as Steve demanded, for the second day in a row, an extra 10%, we were ready to really give it a go.
Emma were down 2 in 2 days, and as Steve had pointed out, there is nothing more determined than a crew on for spoons. While our performance on Thursday had felt more relaxed than Wednesday, it had also been faster, and we knew we could improve again, as Henryk’s beard had overnight to the dismay of the club’s coxes.
Our warm-up felt solid up to the P&E, where we were disappointed to find that our progress of the previous couple of days had led to us being too far from the bench that we normally huddled around for our pre-race chat. This was perhaps a blessing in disguise, as Steve’s nerves had increased to the extent that he could barely finish his pep talk. The boat, perhaps realising the importance of the day, also felt tense on the row to the start, where we dekitted and realised that Simon’s embarrassing neurosis about checking everything had transferred to everyone else. We were also well aware that having moved two stations up the river, the odds on us having to take a corner were smaller, so close attention to Jess’ calls would be paramount.
As it was, we got the same good start as the previous two days and the extra 10% effort could be felt in the boat as we quickly moved up to a length on Emma. Today it seemed that our problem was the opposite of the day before, as we got our speed up very quickly but didn’t really respond to the whistles, just letting our higher speed eat into their advantage. When the bump came, therefore, it was just coming on to first post corner, which meant we had to tuck into the outside of the bend, away from the towpath, and came to college devoid of greenery. Jess’ brief stop to grab a branch prompted Steve to remind us of the need to treat other crews with respect. With the realisation that Saturday could be the realisation of our training for the term, it was with a renewed focus that we took ourselves back to the boathouse and got ready to go again. We had proved we were a good crew. As we left, we saw Lance take the Robinson flag down from the Boathouse. Now we would see how long our luck would hold.