UCBC newsletter HT24

Following on from another very wet term, there is unfortunately not much Oxford-based rowing to report on. With Torpids sadly cancelled, and the river unrowable for most of Hilary term. However, that hasn’t stopped all at UCBC from rowing elsewhere!

A 4+ training at Eton Dorney

Our senior crews have been making regular trips to Eton Dorney Rowing Lake and quickly shifted their focus to putting out strong tideway performances at WeHoRR and HoRR. The Martlet/Univ composite crew at WeHoRR performed excellently and a full account of the race is included in the Martlet section. We are all wishing our HoRR crew the best of luck and I would encourage you to keep a look out on the boat club’s social media for HoRR race updates!

Off the water, we started the term with a 100-hour ergathon club fundraiser and covered over 1.5 million metres collectively to complete this! With this kind of distance our rowers could have reached several international destinations including Rome, Stockholm, Warsaw, Krakow, and Budapest or made it to the ISS and back twice (almost)! We raised a grand total of £1,800 which has allowed us to rehandle all of the W2 blades and send almost £900 to an excellent local cause – Oxford Mutual Aid. We are very grateful to all those who contributed towards our fundraising target, and a special shoutout goes to the generous Dinos & Cassies who carried us over the finish line at our annual dinner!! The new W2 blades have been returned and our crews are looking forward to using the blades in their debut bumps campaign at Summer Eights this year!

Continuing with the fundraising theme, the boat club will be a focus area for the College’s Giving Day on 30 April – 1 May! Save the date and watch out for updates on the Univ website and social media platforms for further news and to get involved. UCBC members will be getting involved across Giving Day by doing various challenges, in addition to some live May Day morning rowing and featuring in the Univ Giving Day video!

Jim (left) and Ian, before crossing the Atlantic

And finally, it’s not just our students who have sought out alternate training locations. UCBC’s very own boatman, Jim Ronaldson, took on the tremendous challenge of rowing across the Atlantic Ocean this winter! Jim, along with his friend, Ian, finished the 3,000 mile race across the Atlantic on Saturday 17 February, rowing as team Never2Late and crossing in a time of 66 days, 17 hours and 12 minutes. And if completing the “World’s Toughest Row” wasn’t already impressive enough, they paired this with a new world record as the oldest men’s pairs team to row any ocean. All members of UCBC are seriously impressed and inspired by Jim and Ian’s achievement. We are incredibly grateful for the many years of support Jim has shown UCBC, poling off our boats for bumps racing with the best possible lines, and expertly repairing our boats day to day. It has been a pleasure to have the opportunity to watch and support Jim in such an enormous challenge and we couldn’t be more proud!

Best wishes, and I hope to see many of you soon.

Charlie Kniebe-Evans, UCBC President 2023-24

From the Women*s Captain

From the Men*s Captain

Isaac Robinson (left) and Lloyd Arnold about to lose tug of war to team Greg

If newsletter word count is proportional to time spent on the water, this would be an extremely short entry. The term got off to a positive start with the 100-hour ergathon, and when we met many of you at Dinos and Cassies, we had high hopes for the rest of the term. Unfortunately, what actually lay ahead was rain, more rain, and race cancellations – Bedford Head and Torpids, the two principal targets for the term, were both modified and ultimately cancelled owing to bad conditions. On the upside, though, it’s now been three years since Univ M1 last failed to bump a boat on a day of Torpids; few current members remain who have seen such a thing. It was also some consolation to enter the two Torpids replacements on offer: New’s Indoorpids erg relay and Pembroke’s Tug-of-Warpids.

For Indoorpids, the rules of the race were such that, as the highest placed of the three division I crews that entered, we started at Head. But we could still “bump out” by extending our lead on the chasing crew by 40 metres. This meant an easy first two races for most of the crew, since our starters – Paolo ‘175 kg squat for reps’ Cicuta and Andy ‘Cross Fit’ Bridger – put 40 metres into the opposition almost immediately. In the third and final race we changed the order and rowed the full course, setting the fastest time of the day despite a few falling-off-the-seat hiccups along the way.

For Tug-of-Warpids, M1 entered two composites with W1. Both teams won their matches in the round of 64, the first against St Antony’s and the second against Teddy Hall. Tragically, the bracket then placed us one against the other in the round of 32 – and in a surprise upset the second team prevailed, though the extended fight was much to the detriment of everyone’s back and hip health.

The remaining Univ team deployed the same technique in the round of 16 on Oriel with great success (judging by their performance, Oriel are fortunate that bumps didn’t go ahead). Next in the quarter-final, we faced Pembroke for a very close match. Though Pembroke started strong and had us a few feet from defeat, our Trenaman-Sakabani anchor combination held firm until Pembroke faded and capitulated. Though, unfortunately, with a quick turnaround to the next match and shaky legs after this effort, we quickly gave in to Magdalen in the semi-final.

Looking ahead to next term, the training we were able to do over the past couple months – on the ergs and at Dorney – won’t have gone to waste. Rather, it’s kept everyone ticking over, doing our best given the conditions to sustain momentum for the Head of the River Race and onwards. In Trinity Term we have our eyes on an extravagant menu of races to choose from, and much to catch up on. We hope to enter some crew or other into possibly all of Bedford Spring Fours & Small Boats Head, Oxford City Bumps, BUCS Regatta, Bedford Amateur Regatta, Summer VIIIs (and the Martlet Regatta!), Metropolitan Regatta, Marlow Regatta, and finally Henley Royal Regatta. Then come next year, we’ll have our chance at Torpids again, starting once more just four bumps from headship.

Gregory Cuff, UCBC Men*s Captain, 2023-2024

From the Women*s Vice-Captains

From the Men*s Vice Captains

Owing to the unforgiving river conditions this term, much of our Hilary has been bundling into cars (and sometimes trains) and making the short journey to Eton Dorney Lake for training. Eager to replicate the success of last year’s M2 Torpids blades, our men*s second boat were regular attendees at Dorney this term and have quickly honed their expertise in boat rigging, de-rigging, and loading. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much of a chance to show off their rowing. In 4th week, the Isis reopened as flood waters receded, the scene was set and M2 stood ready to continue the successes of last year. They put on a good show in IWL D at the end of that week, little did they know at the time that this would be the only matchup against other colleges that occurred this Hilary term. Coming off the back of IWL success M2 began gearing up for Bedford Head just for it to be indefinitely postponed.

Not to worry, M2 then began regearing up for IWL E only for the Isis to flood again. At this point, the prospect of Torpids going ahead as planned seemed slimmer and slimmer as the water level crept back over the towpath. Nevertheless, M2 will press on to convert the hard work this term to have a very solid foundation for Eights.

This term our M3 crew was a continuation of our novice programme owing to a similarly rainy Michaelmas term. M3 progressed massively under the close guidance of our lower boats coach Mark Probets. Many of our novices partook in the weekly pilgrimage to Dorney, we aimed to rotate novices within our M2 outings in order to boost their experience on the water, before building up to a mostly novice 8 in 6th week! Overall we would like to pay tribute to the massive enthusiasm of our novice athletes who erged multiple times per week and attended tank sessions in impressive numbers, all their hard work will undoubtedly pay off in Summer Eights next term!

Looking to Trinity Term, as with other years, M2/3 are looking to enter external regattas including Bedford Spring Head, City Bumps, and Bedford Regatta. Excitement is building as we head towards what will be our novices’ first experience of racing on the Isis and for some their first ever time on the water in Oxford. In an exciting addition to our Trinity calendars, we intend to send our first-ever novice four to BUCs regatta in Nottingham this May. This will see our novices going toe to toe with other novice crews from Universities across the country. Of course, we cannot forget Summer Eights and the excitement this will undoubtedly bring. Across the club, we are really looking forward to finally introducing another year of athletes to the joys of bumps racing!

Alex Rigamonti, UCBC Men*s Vice Captain 2023-24
Ciaran Moscrop, UCBC Men*s Vice Captain 2023,24

From the Social Secretary

From the Martlets

From the Archives – The Fog of Torpids 1974

The 1974 crew in action

This is the story of the “Clash in the Gut” between the First VIIIs of Univ and Balliol in Torpids 1974. Or as The Daily Telegraph described it: the “Crack of Oars”.

It can be hard for a college to fill the seats in three or four VIIIs during Torpids. The weather trends frigid and rainy; many outings begin or end in the dark. Where do you find students who have the requisite raw talent and are happy to bundle up and head to the river, only to have to shed their outerwear?

Inevitably a college boat club turns in the winter to novices, those who have never before rowed. We were fortunate in our recruitment in Michaelmas 1973. Among all Oxford colleges, amazingly the two fastest VIIIs in that November’s Christ Church Regatta – in races open only to Novice VIIIs – were both from University College. Almost 100 Univ Members would row in at least one College race that academic year. By February five of our brand new rowers had graduated to the First VIII, now training for Torpids. Our coxswain was a novice as well.

Oxford had record rains that winter. During the week before Torpids, the Isis was approaching flood stage. Navigating the currents in the Gut was sure to be difficult.

Our 1973 First VIII had bequeathed us an excellent starting position: 3rd in the First Division. We were right behind Balliol, described by some as a serious challenger to Oriel at number one. Univ, having only two oarsmen who had rowed more than a year, was an afterthought.

The 1974 crew list

As Day 1 unfolded, it was Balliol’s coxswain who had trouble steering through the swollen Gut – just when our (mostly) novice crew was kicking into high gear to try to overtake them. I felt a jolt and heard the crack of oars on oars. Although invisible to us rowers sitting with backs to the action, Balliol had crossed into our lane. Or as Balliol would claim, Univ steered into theirs. Unfazed amidst the chaos, coxing in his first bump race ever, coxswain Dave McCann called for us to take it up two notches – as if starting a new race from nearly dead in the water in the Gut. Led by our Australian stroke Hugh Watson, Univ pulled steadily away from Balliol and Christ Church to finish second behind Oriel that day. Little did we know, gasping for air short of Folly Bridge, that a clamour was rising from the Balliol boathouse.

Balliol lodged a formal protest. They accused Univ of crossing into their lane, attacking their rowers with our oars, and perhaps deliberately causing damage to their boat! These claims seemed preposterous, but the clash had been so chaotic that nobody in either boat had a full picture of what had happened.

The Oxford Mail headline read, “Rowing Row Mars Torpids”. Other, more dispassionate voices weighed in. A Torpids umpire, initially silent, ruled that Balliol was at fault. But afraid that Balliol’s claims might hold some truth, I sent a conciliatory note to the Balliol captain saying, let’s decide this on the river: surely the better boat will win on Day 2. This tactic calmed the waters, as Balliol were quite sure they were the better boat.

On the Isis the next afternoon, Univ stroked to a four length lead over a shocked Balliol crew. Even with six novices, Univ would hold off Christ Church four straight days to finish second in the 1st Division. Only four times in the previous century had Univ risen to this level in Torpids!

Recently five members of our 1974 Torpids VIII reconvened to discuss the clash in the Gut. Though what actually happened that day remains shrouded in fog, we are sticking with the umpire’s ruling. Balliol ran into us.

Jack Zoeller, UCBC Captain 1973 – 74