Crew Diary
This past weekend OUWBC travelled to Dorney Lake for match races against Marlow, who brought two crews to race us over three 1500m pieces, rate-capped at 30. For both the Blue Boat and Osiris, this was our first proper match race since crew selection.
For the Blue Boat, after an exciting and close contest against Marlow last year in which Oxford narrowly won, a hard race was anticipated - which is precisely what happened. In each of the three pieces, Marlow's pace off the start gave them a small lead. However, once the Blue Boat's long rhythm came through they were able to outpower them, and began to make up ground, before pushing through the opposition. The margin of a length was the winning verdict in all three races.
Osiris beat the Marlow B boat easily in each of the three pieces. On the second piece the coaches set Marlow off four lengths ahead, to make the race more challenging, but they were rowed through in the last 250m.
Although the squad was reasonably pleased with our performances, we left the matches aware that we had much to work on before March 21st. Osiris realised the need to be more relentless in the application of power in the water. The Blue Boat's slower start revealed the need to improve sharpness and cohesion at higher stroke rates.
26th Feb 2004