MBC Emma Sprints and Winter Head update
Emma Sprints
The costumes for the Emma sprits were exceptional this year- the best we’ve seen at Magdalene Boat Club (MBC) for a while.
Novice Men
The novice men were dressed as Jurassic Park keepers, complete with a real dinosaur (although still a safety-conscious one, even T-Rexs have to wear life jackets when coxing).
The morning crew’s first race was against Fitzwilliam College NM2 who were surprisingly powerful off the line though very scrappy. MBC held for 150m until Fitzwilliam caught a mild crab and we walked away.
The return race was against Jesus NM2 who looked strong and were expecting to easily beat the guys. On the backing of a weak start Magdalene were looking to walk past with a more stable boat and clear stamina advantage, but an unfortunate pair of consecutive crabs lead to Jesus winning.
The afternoon men’s crew was faced against, to their delight, Queens NM1 for a fierce race. Queens arrived 25 minutes late to marshal and pulled a very quick start. In novice Magdalene fashion the boys started to walk through and passed Queens, but at half a length our stroke man was floored by a crab. Queens were then walking away themselves but we put the shove on to a tight finish with barely a quarter of a canvas is our favour. The race back was against St Catherine's NM2. A very scrappy start put us half a length behind, but we had a higher top speed and more endurance. 100m from the line we were bow ball to bow ball and still walking, but an unfortunate final boat-stopping crab gave St Catherine's the victory. One win, one loss for each crew, well rowed boys!
Novice Women
This year, we entered two boats of novice women (Vikings, with plenty of superb facial hair) into Emma Sprints. The first MBC women's boat came an impressive third in their division, beating crews from Lucy Cavendish, Darwin and Emmanuel.
Our second boat was unfortunately beaten in their first race by a very strong Wolfson crew, but they then recovered with an excellent victory over Christ's by over a length. Emma Sprints was the first race for both of our novice coxes, Lexie and Tim. They both managed to handle the chaos of Emma Sprints calmly and skilfully. Overall, the day was a roaring success (quite literally) for the novices, which bodes well for our performance in the Clare Novices Regatta on Saturday and in Fairbairn's next week.
Cantabs Winter Head
Senior Men
The senior men’s squad raced in Cantabs Winter Head on Saturday (2500m head race on the Cam). Both fours performed exceptionally well, with the first four joint winning their event with Pembroke, and beating Lady Margaret, UCL and King’s amongst others, and the second four finishing second in their event, also beating Lady Margaret, UCL and KCL. A great result for both crews - we look forward to facing up to Pembroke again in the Fairbairn Cup.
Well done to all crews, keep training hard for Fairbairns - there isn’t much longer now!
Magdalene Boat Club has a shiny new website so do be sure to go and check it out at magdaleneboatclub.co.uk.
By James Richardson, MBC Captain of Boats & Men’s Captain