Christ Church Regatta

St. John's Novice A's (I am third from the left)

This past weekend Oxford hosted Christ Church Regatta, the annual inter-college novice rowing competition that tests the metal of over 100 boats from approximately twenty different boat clubs. Like all good teams, St. John’s held a pre-race dinner. In keeping with the latest research in sports nutrition we opted for protein-loading as opposed to carbo-loading, or maybe it was mere coincidence that it was salmon night at formal. hall. Then of course we had to watch an inspirational film- I would have voted for Miracle, Remember the Titans or the classically hilarious Cool Runnings, but this is England, so we watched Oxford Blues. The acting and screenplay were truly awful and the film villainizes American rowers at Oxford in the boat club revolt of 1987 and makes the English chaps look like a bunch of pansies. Despite the prevalence of incredibly corny dialogue there were a couple of infinitely quotable lines, most notably: “Make them feel like they came in third” (Obviously there are only two boats in the Oxford-Cambridge boat race so the worst you can finish is second).

Roused by this display of rowing process we cruised through two races on Thursday to advance out of the second round. Seeding is totally skewed so a lot of teams had byes through the second round and then A-boats were paired with pitifully mismatched B-boats in the third round. St. John’s had to fight our way through the regatta. Our first match up was a close race against Balliol, a strong boat club who kept with us until the last couple hundred yards when their energy petered out and we pulled safely away. The second race was against the Trinity B-boat. They caught a crab early in the race and veered so far off course I wondered whether they were heading straight to the dock rather than finishing the race. Friday we raced immediately after the St. John’s B-boat but fortunately we had done the Carol penance the week before and it was their turn to race in a bathtub. Despite Joan’s reliable performance, our race against Linacre was sloppy from the outset- the boat was unsat, the timing was off, people’s blades weren’t catching. Then the four seat caught a crab just as we rounded Boathouse Island. She couldn’t recover her oar so we came to a complete stop and went through the start sequence from the beginning. In the meantime, Linacre had gone ahead by two boat lengths. After the restart we settled into a beautiful rhythm and really put power down. We caught up to within a few meters but ultimately came up short. As we paddled back to the boathouse, it was one of the most oppressive silences I had ever experienced. There is nothing worse than being the source of your own defeat. We were a really powerful team and we cost ourselves the victory. Interestingly, a number of people in other crews, including Wadham, the boat that went on to win, expressed relief that we had been knocked out. Apparently the scouting reports indicated that we were a force to be reckoned with.

It is a tradition after the boat races for the college clubs to go out for a formal dinner, usually curry. In our case we went to a swanky establishment named Jamal’s where the table still bore the sullied table-cloth of the previous guests, diners bring their own beverages and it costs 13GBP for a paltry lump of rice and a few cubes of curried chicken. But at least the guests were classier than the water polo curry. The rules of pennying were clearly explained and strictly enforced (although apparently it is legal to throw a penny at someone’s glass if you are more than a meter away so in addition to being dunked incessantly, Queen Elizabeth was repeatedly hurled across the room and guests were frequently dodging projectiles). Most notably, the sconcing stuck to the theme of rowing- those who had caught a crab, overslept for a morning outing, switched seats, etc. In the course of the evening, a number of my teammates became quite inebriated and great hilarity ensued. Melissa took to song writing and penned the charming little ditty “Who should have one Christ Church? St. John’s! St. John’s!” which she got the whole boat to chant as we walked back to college. Hey, if Justin Bieber can make a career out of crooning “Baby, Baby, Baby” repeatedly, I think two lines may be enough for us to release a hit single. Then our cox got into the spirit and decided that our stroll was insufficiently organized. Soon he had us skipping down St. Giles street in stroke and bow-side pairs arranged in order, while he shouted out commands- “Bow four you are speeding up…Let’s get the timing back!... Power ten, ready, Go! Focus on the finish! Drive with the legs!” It may have been an demoralizing end to our novice rowing season but I don’t think even the winningest teams had a more jovial celebration.