Red Team wins again

A follow up to Red team rows over, though I seem to have skipped 2024 (see here for the 2024 playlist). Not to spoil the suspense, but the Red Team rowed over head again; and on the women's side the arguably-red Jesus also rowed over unchallenged. But don't fear, behind those there was plenty of action (Caius bumping the hapless-this-year Madgalene to go second despite a fine charge from Downing, who got their revenge on Friday but still couldn't touch LMBC); see here for the playlist. This year's best chaos was Friday M2 when Caius II and Girton failed to take Grassy, and then Corpus ploughed into them; but no-one was injured.

If you've got no idea what I'm talking about, see cucbc.org/lents.

I took no photos this year, being busy with the drone; so here's an image from 120m up of M1 on Saturday; the closest two sticks-in-a-distance are Christ's not quite catching King's despite being agonisingly close all the way from Ditton.

Addendum

From Rowbridge:

BOATS BEHAVING BADLY: THE DEFINITIVE FINE ANALYSIS (LENTS 2K25)

It’s Boat Race weekend and OUBC are feeling smug. Their “alumni” have successfully banned every single CUBC athlete from competing. Sitting on the start line, though, the OUBC crews’ eyes widen in shock, quickly turning to fear, as they spot the replacement Cambridge crew spannering their way towards the start. Surely not… it can’t be? Murmurs of disbelief now amongst the hapless OUBC athletes as their worst fears are realised: it’s Corpus M1.

Ignoring the rules entirely, the Corpus cox calls for a big 10 straight through the line without bothering to wait for the flag. A nervy Oxford set off in hot pursuit, and overtake Corpus quickly. Jitters beginning to subside, Oxford’s rhythm returns as they approach the bend under Hammersmith Bridge. But panic soon returns as behind them, Corpus make zero effort to make the bend and instead bore a hole straight through the abutments, immediately destroying the whole bridge.

Dread sets in as Oxford’s stroke yells: “WE’RE DONE FOR! THEY’VE NOT GOT A RUDDER! THEY’RE COMING STRAIGHT FOR US!” In desperation, stroke tries to bail out of the boat but Jesus have bike-locked their leg to the footplate with some passive-aggressive note about it being “their” footplate actually. The OUBC cox, true terror in their eyes, swivels around in their seat just in time to hear the Corpus cox shout “yeah, nice corner there boys, bump in 20” before Corpus’s Jannie’s indestructible bow ploughs straight through Oxford’s stern, vaporising the entire boat’s superstructure instantly.

Corpus go on to win the race by 300 lengths. They are fined £50 by CUCBC for boating without a lifejacket.

~ TOTALS ~

Tues: 495

Weds: 510

Thurs: 540

Fri: 555

Sat: 690

TOTAL: £2790

~ MOST DASTARDLY COLLEGES ~

Sidney: £275 (Moneyball. Rocky. Shrek. Time to write another chapter in the book of all-time great underdog stories as one of the Cam’s pretty chill guys rockets into Boats Behaving Badly stardom. The first Lent Bumps since 2020 where Emma haven’t reigned supreme as the most-fined college. Take. A. Bow.)

Jesus: £190 (The Cam’s princes and princesses of darkness relish playing their panto villain role and this week was no exception with particularly noteworthy performances from their lower boats. Late to marshalling? Check. Extremely late to marshalling? Check (again). Blissfully ignorantly rowing on through a checkmate? Check(mate).)

Clare: £180 (the yellow submarine sends a torpedo into Emma’s hopes of a top three finish this bumps. It’s colder than a polar bear’s toenails stuff from their men’s side on the final day, with ruthless examples of how not to clear helping them secure bronze over ducks and laundry college.)

Emma: £165 (heads must surely be rolling in Emma’s Fine Department after this. Most colleges would pop the champagne after a sparkling fourth-place finish like this, but the bubbles will have been decidedly flat for Emma at this week’s BCD. It’s just not the standards they hold themselves to at that college and they’ll be gutted to lose out on an event they’ve had a stranglehold on for so many years now. If you know anyone at Emma, check in with them. Make sure they’re ok.)

Downing: £155 (a big hand for Downing this week, who rarely crack the big leagues at the top of the fine game. A cultured performance, with expert deployment of classic fines like “pointlessly handheld filming a rowover” really showing Downing’s class this weeks. Big foundations laid for Mays.)

~ GOOD AS GOLD ~

Stop press, stop press… yeah yeah the usual nerds and grandparents are in the “lame as hell” list here (Clare Hall, St Edmunds), but so are… Pembroke? And King’s? Are you guys ok? This is the first time in our data that either of these colleges have failed to donate to Umpires’ Dinner, and must be a really concerning place to find yourself so close to Mays. You have to ask: did Pembroke focus too hard on producing ruthless blade-train after ruthless blade-train, and not hard enough on the actual aim of bumps (being choppers)?

~ DISOBEDIENT RASCALS: THIS YEAR’S NAUGHTIEST BOATS ~

Sidney W1: £140 (it’s the Sidney show this week. Absolute smash and grab stuff from these ladies. Go in for a korma, end up with a vindaloo type job. Every day just saw brutal performance after brutal performance from this crew, as they duked it out bumping back and forth with Catz. Sure, Catz may have ended the week +2 to Sidney’s -2, but I don’t see them on this list and that’s what matters.)

Sidney M2: £135 (just pipped by their women to the top spot, this crew has the unusual honour of being fined for delightfully dreadful clearing twice on a single day. But they took their W1 right to the line, stretching them like spandex on the beaches of Benidorm. That kind of close competition can only be good for the sport.)

Darwin M1: £105 (merciless bumping strategy this week from the boys, who continued drilling their bowball into bumped coxes’ backs long after they should’ve held it up on several occasions. The only crew this week to smilingly donate blankets to chilly umpires one minute, and then hurl foul abuse downrange the next. Confusing, but effective.)

~ GENDER FINE GAP ~

Fascinating one this week. We’re delighted to report that the fine gap has remained narrow since last Mays: men’s boats were responsible for 50.7% of fines by value vs. 47.5% for women’s boats (the remainder are generic college fines for marshals not turning up etc).

Fine analysts everywhere are rejoicing, but let’s not be too hasty to declare the fibreglass ceiling smashed: because men tend to get overexcited and pee themselves during the warm Mays week, they often rack up hefty public urination fines. On your toes for Mays then, please, ladies.

~ INSIGHTS & TRENDS ~

First off, big up ARU. Welcome back. Always grinning like Cheshire Cats when we see you lot enter bumps. Guaranteed mayhem. We know you’re too cool for bumps, but hope to see you back for Mays (bring more people next time. We reckon you can smash the “all-time largest illegal bank party” record).

It goes without saying we need to call out Corpus M1, who made that rare ascent of Bumps Fines Olympus this week. They attained the highest accolade in our sport (the cox ban) after making a stellar contribution to bankside erosion by repeatedly slamming themselves into Grassy. Remember: blades are temporary, but bans are (CUCBC have firmly informed us) forever.

Average fine value this week was low, at £28.76 (or just £23.25 per boat entered). Indeed, this is the second-lowest average fine value in our records (only surpassed by last Lents). Not that gassed about it which is why we’ve put this way down here in para 3 tbh. Concerning, but we’re confident that getting a few pints of fizzy pop down the beer/champers boat divs before this Mays will reverse this worrying trend towards safe, clean racing.

We were fascinated by Lucy W2 somehow getting a towpath ban for “abusive behaviour.” This is the first time we’ve seen this in our data, and a noble new slopping of sick into the vomit bucket that is “abusing volunteer umpires giving up their time to put races on for your benefit”. We can only speculate what they said. “OUBC did nothing wrong”?

Finally, it does feel like the vibe has been slightly off lately. Caius proving yet again that they take this too seriously by spending the GDP of a small nation on a new boathouse, which they’ll use almost exclusively to train for two sets of meme races per year; Jesus locking random people’s bikes up; and Oxford… well, ironically, they’re gonna get schooled in a few weeks. But bumps is always a wonderfully bizarre moment of total nonsense in amongst all of that, and thanks again to everyone at CUCBC for putting it on, despite everything. Oh, and shoutout to William “BNOC” Connolley for finally getting the recognition he deserves. BNOC today, Chancellor of the University tomorrow. He’s got our vote.

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