[fullmetal]

Posting this for any interested--apologies for tweaking your attention if not...

This was written by Alistair Potts, a former Cambridge Light Blue cox and Great Britain international-level cox who followed the race in one of the launches.

Anyone travelling for the first time on a launch following the Boat Race will tell you two things surprised them. The first is the speed. To put it in rowers' terms, you're doing 2k in 4 minutes. You have to have some serious horsepower in your launch just to keep up.The second is just how enjoyable the race is without Topolski.

So it was a good race. Cambridge had clearly not wasted time practising a start, and so we saw Oxford take 3/4 length as the flotilla got up to speed. A better Oxford crew could have finished the race by two minutes,but they weren't, so it wasn't. Oxford had more gears, Cambridge only one, but Cambridge's base pace was marginally more efficient than Oxford's. From the start through to the point where it was stopped we'd see them repeatedly attack and gain a small advantage but every single time they were wound back in.

I had thought we'd see more clashing before Hammersmith and we didn't. Zoe (the Oxford cox) had the better of the course round Hammersmith; they passed under neck-and-neck but the Cambridge boat took the bend a little early and ended up across the tide for a few strokes on a point where they should have taken a couple of seats. We came down the Eyot still dead level and by the end of the island, marginally, you'd have wanted to be in the Oxford boat. Cambridge weren't going to suddenly find a length, and that meant they'd have to take the long way round the final bend to the line. But what you can't know from outside the boat is just how fucked the crews are, and as the race drags on it just takes one guy, one single poorly-timed stroke or the germ of the seed of doubt in one mind for the race to turn on its head. Let no-one say they know how the race would have played out.

So I'm in the launch and I spot a head in the water. We all do about the same time, about 250m in front of the boats. It's clearly and obviously a swimmer, his head is above the water, he's come from the boats moored near the crossing. I think for a moment that maybe he just wants to watch from there, but now the umpire is waving his red flag. It takes twenty seconds for his message to get through to the crews, and by then this guy's right under the Oxford oars. He's pulled from the water. The comments from the flotilla are not friendly. Had any safety boat been on hand, and quickly transferred him it's possible we wouldn't even have spun. But the halfwits with their crash-helmets and flashing lights seized their moment in the limelight, gunned up their motorboat from no-where and caused the most almighty wash by the time they reached us.

There's debate about who was leading when John put up his flag. A couple of feet to Cambridge is the consensus, but having now watched it on tv, there was nothing to choose between the crews. And luckily the race was stopped right at the end of the long straight past the Eyot, making a restart fairly straightforward. Or would have been had not two or three of these orange-suited safety muppets started doing donuts in their motor-toys like overexcited lapdogs. Cambridge row past us close enough to touch, and of course we're banging the launch and geeing them up, and they look remarkably composed. It's actually familiar territory: start to the end of the eyot is a standard piece, followed by beginning of the Eyot to the finish.

We turn around and chug behind the eyot with the rest of the flotilla, as directed. I'm with Ted who coxed a couple of years ago, and tell him I've never even been here, but he says he has loads of times. I vaguely remember the island's supposed to be home to giant Chinese crabs, but despite looking hard there's no evidence of them. There's loads of people on the bank though and they've all got good words, that was nice. So we're back in position and John's calling the crews up to restart but it's immediately apparent when they've turned that the water's unrowable, that long, seasick making swell that just flops you from side to side. So he tells them to turn again, but now the entire flotilla is in position and now it's us who are going to screw up the water but we have no choice but to turn again against the tide and follow the crews up to St Pauls.

I wonder which crew I'd rather be in. For Cambridge, tactically, the position is not good. They know they're going to get stiffed of the start again, but unlike back at Putney Oxford will be able to turn the screw on hard as the bend swings round to their favour after about 90 seconds. And unlike the Fulham bend, where they are on the river now is a big, big advantage for Oxford. But, if Cambridge can cling on up to Barnes Bridge, I'd give Cambridge the better odds. Oxford, far lighter, have had to work harder than Cambridge and their bladework looks more vulnerable. If you didn't know anything about the crews you'd definitely choose to be in the Oxford boat though. From Cambridge to win from here is going to require something very special just to stay in it for the first couple of minutes.

And by now we've been pottering about for about half an hour and the flotilla is starting to suffer. We've had to spend an age in full power reverse gear (on top of about six minutes at the start), which puts a lot of strain on the engines and makes them very hard to control directionally. Ours is starting to make odd noises, so rather than being right next to the umpire's launch where we've been up to now we pull into closer to the bank next to the press launch, so that if we do conk out we won't be in the way at all. I see Quarrell. She's wearing enormous ear-muff headphones, I have no idea why, so I call her on the mobile and ask her if she knows what's going on. No more than anyone else. She sounds like she's on the moon, when actually I could probably have just yelled at her.

And then, quite suddenly, the two boats are in position and drifting rapidly down the eyot with both coxes hands in the air. I discover that here, closer to the bank, you get quite a different view and realise why the press launch is on the outside and no so much behind the umpire. And we're screaming (unfairly) at John to start the race, because if he doesn't get on with it they're going to be at the finish before he's even started.

[fullmetal]

Posting this for any interested--apologies for tweaking your attention if not...

This was written by Alistair Potts, a former Cambridge Light Blue cox and Great Britain international-level cox who followed the race in one of the launches.

Anyone travelling for the first time on a launch following the Boat Race will tell you two things surprised them. The first is the speed. To put it in rowers' terms, you're doing 2k in 4 minutes. You have to have some serious horsepower in your launch just to keep up.The second is just how enjoyable the race is without Topolski.

So it was a good race. Cambridge had clearly not wasted time practising a start, and so we saw Oxford take 3/4 length as the flotilla got up to speed. A better Oxford crew could have finished the race by two minutes,but they weren't, so it wasn't. Oxford had more gears, Cambridge only one, but Cambridge's base pace was marginally more efficient than Oxford's. From the start through to the point where it was stopped we'd see them repeatedly attack and gain a small advantage but every single time they were wound back in.

I had thought we'd see more clashing before Hammersmith and we didn't. Zoe (the Oxford cox) had the better of the course round Hammersmith; they passed under neck-and-neck but the Cambridge boat took the bend a little early and ended up across the tide for a few strokes on a point where they should have taken a couple of seats. We came down the Eyot still dead level and by the end of the island, marginally, you'd have wanted to be in the Oxford boat. Cambridge weren't going to suddenly find a length, and that meant they'd have to take the long way round the final bend to the line. But what you can't know from outside the boat is just how fucked the crews are, and as the race drags on it just takes one guy, one single poorly-timed stroke or the germ of the seed of doubt in one mind for the race to turn on its head. Let no-one say they know how the race would have played out.

So I'm in the launch and I spot a head in the water. We all do about the same time, about 250m in front of the boats. It's clearly and obviously a swimmer, his head is above the water, he's come from the boats moored near the crossing. I think for a moment that maybe he just wants to watch from there, but now the umpire is waving his red flag. It takes twenty seconds for his message to get through to the crews, and by then this guy's right under the Oxford oars. He's pulled from the water. The comments from the flotilla are not friendly. Had any safety boat been on hand, and quickly transferred him it's possible we wouldn't even have spun. But the halfwits with their crash-helmets and flashing lights seized their moment in the limelight, gunned up their motorboat from no-where and caused the most almighty wash by the time they reached us.

There's debate about who was leading when John put up his flag. A couple of feet to Cambridge is the consensus, but having now watched it on tv, there was nothing to choose between the crews. And luckily the race was stopped right at the end of the long straight past the Eyot, making a restart fairly straightforward. Or would have been had not two or three of these orange-suited safety muppets started doing donuts in their motor-toys like overexcited lapdogs. Cambridge row past us close enough to touch, and of course we're banging the launch and geeing them up, and they look remarkably composed. It's actually familiar territory: start to the end of the eyot is a standard piece, followed by beginning of the Eyot to the finish.

We turn around and chug behind the eyot with the rest of the flotilla, as directed. I'm with Ted who coxed a couple of years ago, and tell him I've never even been here, but he says he has loads of times. I vaguely remember the island's supposed to be home to giant Chinese crabs, but despite looking hard there's no evidence of them. There's loads of people on the bank though and they've all got good words, that was nice. So we're back in position and John's calling the crews up to restart but it's immediately apparent when they've turned that the water's unrowable, that long, seasick making swell that just flops you from side to side. So he tells them to turn again, but now the entire flotilla is in position and now it's us who are going to screw up the water but we have no choice but to turn again against the tide and follow the crews up to St Pauls.

I wonder which crew I'd rather be in. For Cambridge, tactically, the position is not good. They know they're going to get stiffed of the start again, but unlike back at Putney Oxford will be able to turn the screw on hard as the bend swings round to their favour after about 90 seconds. And unlike the Fulham bend, where they are on the river now is a big, big advantage for Oxford. But, if Cambridge can cling on up to Barnes Bridge, I'd give Cambridge the better odds. Oxford, far lighter, have had to work harder than Cambridge and their bladework looks more vulnerable. If you didn't know anything about the crews you'd definitely choose to be in the Oxford boat though. From Cambridge to win from here is going to require something very special just to stay in it for the first couple of minutes.

And by now we've been pottering about for about half an hour and the flotilla is starting to suffer. We've had to spend an age in full power reverse gear (on top of about six minutes at the start), which puts a lot of strain on the engines and makes them very hard to control directionally. Ours is starting to make odd noises, so rather than being right next to the umpire's launch where we've been up to now we pull into closer to the bank next to the press launch, so that if we do conk out we won't be in the way at all. I see Quarrell. She's wearing enormous ear-muff headphones, I have no idea why, so I call her on the mobile and ask her if she knows what's going on. No more than anyone else. She sounds like she's on the moon, when actually I could probably have just yelled at her.

And then, quite suddenly, the two boats are in position and drifting rapidly down the eyot with both coxes hands in the air. I discover that here, closer to the bank, you get quite a different view and realise why the press launch is on the outside and no so much behind the umpire. And we're screaming (unfairly) at John to start the race, because if he doesn't get on with it they're going to be at the finish before he's even started.