Author: Henrik Hannemann

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Oxford Regatta

Autumn Fours

Autumn Fours

Term has started and the development squads had a first chance to show what they have been up to in the last couple of weeks training. Autumn Fours on the Isis featured two Merton fours and a double. Especially after no boats being entered last year, this year’s crews showed promise. Both fours went through to the second round (Men’s) and the Quarter-finals (Women’s). The women’s four lost against Hertford who went on to win the women’s 4+ category. The double (Daniel Kennedy and Lukas Koch) lost in the final against a very experienced crew of scullers from Oriel.

The next regattas with Merton crews will be Nephtys and Christ Church Regatta during November. This will be the chance to shine for the novices.

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Oxford Regatta

Summer rowing – sunshine on the Isis

Casual paddles and regatta racing

Summer. The rare time of the year when you can actually row on the Isis in the sun, but also the time when coxing and manoeuvring around punts, cruisers, tourist paddle boats, and all other kinds of river traffic becomes the challenge of the day.

2014_SummerRowing

Summer rowing was taken up by all three common rooms and we fielded a mixed NOV4+ at the Oxford City Royal Regatta on 17th August. The crew consisted of Tiff Brydges (Cox, JCR), Charles Alexander (Stroke, SCR), Robert MacLaren (3, SCR), Ryan Burke (2, MCR), Verena Schenzinger (Bow, MCR). Despite a strong showing, the ad-hoc crew complement fielded did not progress through the ranks, though valuable regatta experience was gained. Further two Mertonians rowed in an IM2 4+ (Alex Moore in 2 seat and Henrik Hannemann in bow seat) fielded by the OULRC Development Squad. This boat had to strike its colours in the final against Hertford College.

The continued rowing over summer as well as regatta experience gained is promising for the coming terms and Merton Boat CLub branching out into more external events again.

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Oxford Regatta

SCR rowing success

SCR fields successful crew in Summer Eights

A long-term goal of the Boat Club has finally come to fruition – getting the SCR out on the water again. ‘Again’ because legend has it an SCR 8+ was fielded for rowing-on in the 1970s though not much is known of any success thereafter. It has also to be mentioned that this venture did apparently not outlast the rowing-on stage of the regatta.
After a few sunny moments of training, the SCR successfully fielded a boat in this years Summer Eights. Initial obstacles of a swim test were soon overcome (one member opted for performing a live drill during training aided by an ejector crab…) and Merton was fielding a third eight after successful qualification. It is important to note that all three common rooms were represented on the river in Merton’s 750th year! Even better: the crew went on to bump up twice in the following four days, although one might argue a klaxon on Saturday robbed them of their third bump.

2014_SummerEights_SCR_M3

Crew:

Cox: Sara Wehlin (4th year undergraduate)
S: Alan Barr (Physics) 7: Simon Hooker (Physics) 6: Charles Alexander (Finance Bursar) 5: Robert MacLaren (Medicine) 4: Simon Draper (Biochemistry) 3: David Llewellyn (DPoP) 2: Jonathan Prag (Ancient History) B: Ralf Bader (Philosophy)

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Committee Oxford

Annual General Meeting & Elections

New committee – old and new faces

Yesterday our Annual General Meeting took place. Starting with the outgoing committee giving account of the past year we can look back on hard training on the Isis, at Godstow, and good performance from our novice crews both in Christ Church Regatta and in Nephthys Regatta. Furthermore a lot of work behind the scenes streamlining committee work and solving a lot of admin issues which had built up over the years will see MCBC in good shape for the future. Despite all the flooding and rains we retained a committed squad throughout Hilary Term which formed most of our Summer Eights crew after Torpids had been called off due to safety concerns.

A further obvious feature of the AGM was the election of a new committee. As it is tradition, the new committee will take over on midnight of Saturday of Summer Eights. For the following year MCBC will be lead by:

Sondre Lunde (Secretary)
Jaime Valdemoros Gomez (Men’s Captain)
Sally Bolton (Women’s Captain)
Tiffany Brydges (Captain of Coxes)
Henrik Hannemann (Treasurer)
Daniel Kennedy (Men’s Vice-Captain)
Laura King (Women’s Vice-Captain
Caitlin Armstrong (Water Safety Advisor)
Brendan Kjellberg-Motton (Social Secretary)

We would like to thank the outgoing committee for all their hard work and dedication despite the frustrating weather conditions! Also best of luck to all the new committee members.

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Head Race Oxford Regatta

Isis Winter League 2013

Isis Winter League A 2013-14

After training at Godstow for around  a month whilst the Isis bustled with Novices, our Mens’ Dev Squad entered an eight into the Isis Winter League on 3rd November 2013, where we finished 5th out of over 20 crews, a testament to our hard work and our new coach, Rebecca Bates.

“Bury yourselves”

Below is a video shot from Sondre’s Go-Pro attached to our cox’s (Tiff) headband of the entire 4 minutes and 33 seconds it took us to complete the course – we are sure Tiff’s aggressive shouting had something to do with our success at least!

Crew:

Cox:Tiff S: Dom 7: Sondre 6: Ben 5: Paul 4: Alex 3: Doron 2: Tom B: Musashi