The Cambridge Town Bumps Regatta

Well, this week has featured a once per afternoon journey to up to Cambridge at rush hour in order to join in with the Rob Roy Rowing Club bid to retain the Championships of the Cambridge Town Bumps Regatta - aptedly titled "Head of the River." This is undoubtably the oddest rowing event in which I have ever taken part. The format goes something like this. There are five flights of 16 rowing crews. Crews are seated (1-80) based on the previous year's final results. Each crew races once a day each day of the week - the fifth flight first to the first flight last. The race itself is structured along traditional lines whereby all 16 crews of a flight are lined up in single file (a la "head racing") equidistant over the first few hundred meters of the 2700 meter course on the River Cam. They all have a length and one half separating them, aside from the lead shell which is only given a length (due to the fact that they are rowing in clean water for the whole event). A canon announces the start (actually three canon blasts - at the 4 minutes to go, and one minute to go, and start) and the crews race to attempt to overcome the crew in front of them. They can do this in one of two ways. They can attempt to gain one full length into the preceeding boat, judged by a marshall on the bank (and often disputed!) who then instructs the crews that such an overlap has occured, or better, physically touch on shell's nose to the other's tail (thus, effectively saving a half length of space). Once either of these events has been achieved the crews traditionally pull to one side to allow the following crews to pass. The "over-bump" is also a rare occurane when a particularly fast crew elects to row past the preceeding crew and bump the next inline! The crew that "has been bumped" begins the following day one position further down in the rankings, and everyone does it all over again! If the first ranked crew retains their position on the last day, they win. It is a unique event not only for the way it is carried out, but also for the reasons that it includes only Cambridge based crews (each crew is allowed one guest), and also for the fact that the spectrum of rowers includes everyone from full time training athletes, to former internationals turned sometimes rowers, to total hacks who train only a few weeks for only this event. There is a fiesta on friday that is said to rival all rowing parties held anywhere at any time. We'll see!