Foster Fairbairn Pairs
Raced over a series of knockout races in a chasing format the Foster Fairbain Pairs are one of only two university organised
pairs events (the other being the Magdalene Silver Pairs). Fresh from CULRC reserve duty ANdy Twigg teamed up with myself in the
hope that our combined experience would give us a good chance of a win.
Monday
The first race went according to plan, dispatching a significantly slower Christ's pair by 53 seconds. We felt that the row was quite
smooth for the first part but got slightly worse coming round into the reach. However 53 seconds is a long way and we were not in too much
danger of losing. This was despite some inventive steering through the gut to avoid the barges involved in the towpath resurfacing work.
Tuesday
A further improvement on yesterdays performance meant that the second string Trinity pair was knocked out in a reasonably comfortable
fashion. However the head wind that kicked up during the race made the rowing much harder, especially in the reach, where again our
technique suffered. A positive was the steering, or was that the lack of barges.....
Wednesday
Having reached the semi-final we now faced a strong and well faniced Corpus pair. A good start and technical improvements made following
yesterdays row allowed us to stay in contention for the first half of the race, and the honours wer about even going into Ditton Corner.
Alas at this point disaster struck. A combination of a steering error and the high wind forced us right to the outside of the corner, losing
us valuable time (we later learnt that this had been the point when Corpus realised they might have a good chance of a win). After this
we never really recovered and lost by an official (and somewhat exaggerated in our opinion) 12 second margin.