The Billygoats again entered the Cambridge Town Bumps as Paul Wallace reports:
On Monday 15th July, a scratch Billygoats crew pushed off at 7:30pm and gingerly made our way to the start, entered as “City 8” starting in the lower half of M2 division. This year, the Bumps used the new division timings, with four days’ Bumps spread across five days – which made it easier for crews to fit around work commitments.
A strong start on the first day saw us pull away from Rob Roy 4, and move up slightly on the juniors in “City 7” before they caught XPress 2 at First Post Corner. With open water ahead, we kept a two length lead and finished with a solid rowover. On the second day, the crew put in another good start, and chased down the XPress 2 boat very quickly to collect the bump within 500m, an excellent result on another hot and humid day. Thursday’s crew repeated the game plan and overhauled St. Neots 2 in short order to score another quick bump, and set up the final day’s racing to chase “City 7” again.
There are some great photographs on the Cantabs Facebook page, with thanks to Bill Amos at Cantabs RC:
Thursday-1
Thursday-2
Thursday-3
Wednesday-1
On Friday, another big start saw us pull away from St Neots to a three-length lead. City 7 and Cantabs 6 had bumped ahead and blocked the river, so Sammi Tarling called for a hard stop to avoid a collision before First Post. At this point, with St Neots bearing down on us at full speed, our race looked over. But as the boats ahead shifted, Sammi called for an emergency restart, the crew responded, and we powered through the narrowest of gaps and into open water, allowing us to escape from the chasing boats.
Ahead of us, “City 6” had seen the other boats drop out of the race, and felt sure of a safe row-over – but before long, they could see us closing the gap. Sammi urged us on round Grassy and past the Plough, grazing the corners with the smallest of margins, and an overbump became a real possibility. City 6 responded to hold their lead at around two lengths as we chased down The Reach to the finish. If we had not been held up at First Post, then it would have been a very close race indeed, and that evening we speculated about the heavy fine that would have been levied by the CRA if the Billygoats, rowing as City 8, had overbumped the City 6 crew.
Full results: Two bumps, Two row-overs for the Billygoats
http://www.crarowing.co.uk/town-bumps/about-the-cra-town-bumps/results
With thanks to Robert Doe for organising the crews, and especially to Sammi Tarling for being the best cox on the river!