NW1
Keen to end this term’s utter domination on a high, NW1 showed up to Fairbairns keen to put all their hard work into practice. Despite harry being unable to show his face in the bright light of day, he managed to get them safely down to Jesus lock, where we made sure to give Christ’s a generous head start before setting off. The girls quickly settled onto a solid race pace which they managed to hold for the whole course, absolutely blasting down the reach! Having gained over a minute on Christ’s we knew that we were looking at a great result, and later found out we’d won overall! A thoroughly well deserved victory and the first Churchill women’s crew to win fairbairns since 1986 – this certainly bodes well for next term! A massive congratulations to the girls and harry for an amazing term of hard work and fun, hopefully many more to come. – Paula Wulff
NW2
NW2 is a crew that have really pulled through this term, even though the conditions have definitely not been in their favour! Despite those Thursday mornings seemingly being haunted by a permanent yellow flag, every person – rowers, cox and coach – made the most of the time they did have and fighting through it all meant they emerged with an even stronger crew spirit. Emma Sprints was entered with much enthusiasm and although the ‘Where’s Wally’s fell just behind Emmanuel and King’s, they definitely did not give up without a fight! Having gained some race experience the crew then entered Fairbairns. This time everyone focused on settling into a strong race rate and made sure to find it again as tiredness set in during the race. Knowing every member of the crew was pushing through right to the end spurred them on and NW2 rowed through the finish to earn themselves an amazing 7th place out of all college second women’s crews!! So much credit goes to Giorgio for battling through the wind and weather, managing to give so many novices a go on the water and putting together a racing crew all at the same time! – Paula Wulff