Congratulations to both novice crews competing in Nephthys Regatta 2013. Nephthys Regatta, sponsored by the Oxford University Lightweight Rowing Club, takes place on the Isis each year just before Christ Church Regatta, the main novice event of the year. It is often used as a “warm-up regatta” for novices competing in Christ Church, and also sports senior divisions. Wolfson entered a novice crew of each gender.
The men’s boat (Svein Morkve, Jan Ahrend, Liu Nan, David Crosse, Peter Paine, Wybo Wiersma, Niclas Palmius, and Matthew Chang, coxed by Stef Wragg) won three contentious races before being ousted in the quarter-finals by the crew that went on to win the regatta.
In the first heat race against St. Peter’s, Wolfson gained half a length in the first 20 strokes and pushed on past boathouse at 1/2 a length. We put another length or so onto our lead coming past Boathouse Island to win by 1.5 lengths. We recovered well from 2 crabs. In the second heat against Univ’s first boat, we got in a good rhythm and held them at half a length until Boathouse Island, where one of the Univ boat caught a big crab, meaning they had to steer off to the side. They recovered and came back at us, but we held them to win by 2 lengths.
In the third heat against St. Anne’s, Wolfson pushed straight off the opposition from the first stroke and settled into an excellent race pace, putting a length into them by boathouse island. We continued smoothly, putting water between the boats all the way to the finish where we won by 2.5 lengths. In the quarter-finals against Jesus, Wolfson had a rough start and Jesus picked up some water between us – putting a length on by Boathouse Island. One of our crew caught a nasty crab and we had to back off the pace for a few strokes. The crew were back on it through Boathouse Island and rowed at a strong pace, but fell to Jesus – who eventually went on to win the whole regatta!
We are still awaiting details of the women’s performance in Nephthys Regatta 2013. This page will be updated as soon as it is received.