Lucy Cavendish College Boat Club triumphs at May Bumps 2022
Lucy Cavendish was the most successful club on the river and won double blades and the Pegasus Cup!
Hattie Wills, Lucy’s Boat Club president, tells us all about the newly expanded crews.
The Lucy Boat Club has expanded massively this year, from 3 boats to 6. It’s been a challenge, both organisationally and practically (trying to fit the mens’ size 11 feet into size 6 boat shoes!), but one which we’re always fighting to overcome.
On Saturday 5th, Lucy entered 3 boats into Newnham Head, a 2km head race on the Cam. Despite the 40mph gusts of wind, each crew did spectacularly. It follows the bumps course, so acts as the perfect preparation for the upcoming races in March.
The biggest struggle for the boat club has always been that with a mostly postgraduate intake we retain few rowers longer than a year. This leads to crews with mostly recent novice rowers, and a few more experienced seniors. With this only being the first year of higher undergraduate intake at Lucy, the racing crews have a total of 9 senior rowers - the other 15 being recent novices, in M1 and W2. This puts the crews at a significant disadvantage compared to other colleges, but one which we try to tackle as best we can.
Our W2 boat competed in the first division of the day. In a slightly unfortunate turn of events they came a little too close to the bank, however thanks to the heroics of the rower in the bow-seat (who clambered across the end of the boat to push the boat free), they kept going and finished strong with a time of 11:28, refusing to be defeated!
M1 was next - the first-ever race for our senior men’s crew (with one final hour sub kindly lent by Hughes Hall). The wind picked up for this race, yet they finished with a time of 9:41 having battled the gale-force winds admirably.
It would have been impossible for our men’s teams to train without the help of Cambridge ’99 Rowing Club for the hire of their boat this term and for this race. Despite several outings with the riggers coming loose and the feet falling off, “Ernie” has seen us to a promising start to the year! Clearly, it is hard to contain the power of Lucy Cavendish College Boat Club!
W1 were in the last division of the day. They had trained exceptionally hard over the previous weeks, so despite facing the strongest winds of the day and without their regular cox, they finished with a whirlwind time of 9 minutes and 10 seconds, placing them third in their division and being one of the only women’s boats in their division to catch up with the boat in front of them.
Lent bumps start on the 1st of March, so from now, both crews will start to focus on training for this - a novel experience for all but 2 members of the club! Before that, we hope to enter lower boats into Pembroke Regatta - a head to head race on the Cam.
We’re also taking one women’s and one men’s crew down to race in Oxford for the very first Benet’s-Lucy Regatta with St Benet’s Hall (University of Oxford) on the 19th of February.
We’re always grateful for the support we receive from the College and donors, which has been invaluable this year so far.
Our rowers have been training really hard, and we’re so excited to see what the rest of the term brings. Go Lucy!!
