New College Boat Club (NCBC) entered two novice women's boats in Nephthys Regatta, the Purple boat (an "A boat" - aka, the better boat) and the gold boat (a "B boat - aka, the underdogs). Both boats have been training for about 2 months, and it has certainly paid off. (A special thanks to Alice, Ellie, and Beckie - our amazing coaches and cox!) For our first race, my boat (the B/Gold boat) raced against another college's A boat. Needless to say we were all a bit intimidated being against an A boat, especially considering this was the first crew competition any of us have ever been in. The race was intense, and felt super sloppy, but we won our first match (!!) which meant that we carried on into the next bracket of the competition. At this point, I don't think many of us were too happy to have to race again. We had about an hour break and got back in the competition. For the second round of competition we raced against another A boat. This time, we were much less sloppy, had an amazing race, and won this round, too! It was great! This win meant that we moved on into the quarterfinals. However, since our girls' purple boat was also doing amazing, we had to borrow a boat from another college. We ended up borrowing a men's boat with horribly large and unreliable shoes and a difficult steering system. We made the best of it and gave it our all (especially Heather L., whose entire shoe plate came undone at the start! - Thanks a lot, Regent's College!). Even though we gave it our all we unfortunately were eliminated in this round. Our girls' A boat, however, was still doing amazing! They went on to win their matches in the quarter-finals and the semifinals. When it came to the finals, it was a much closer race, but they still managed to beat the other boat by quite a distance to become the champion of the entire regatta! Nice work, ladies!! Now, let's kill it at Christ Church next week!
Today was such an amazing day. I missed out on Stonehenge and Bath for this today, and I'm SO HAPPY I stayed to race. I am also so glad that I joined NCBC and stuck with it. I have met some amazing people and am having a wonderful time being a part of something here at Oxford. I'm going to miss this when I get back home!
My boat about to win our second match.
My crew-mates, amazing coaches and wonderful cox!
NCBC Women's Purple boat about to win it all! (Maybe it wasn't as close as I thought!)
