Emma sprints, the notorious fancy-dress regatta, provided Leonidas with their first racing experience on the water. The attitude that was taken into the regatta was one of cautiousness. This was the sensible approach to take as the crew had never taken part in anything like this before, other than a spontaneous bit of sparring on the reach with NMMaximus earlier on in the week. The main aim of racing was to get first race nerves out of the way before the more important regatta of Clare Novices the following weekend, particularly as 2 races were guaranteed (losers in the first round faced off against other first round losers in a race to regain some pride). And it was a good thing that this did happen. In the first race, Leonidas was drawn up against Queens’ NM1. Seeing as Queens’ had 2 boats in the M1 category alone (and 5 novice boats in total), it was suspected that they would be strong opposition. Unfortunately, Leonidas didn’t really get a chance to challenge them, suffering an absolutely classic case of first race nerves on the start line. Despite numerous practice starts at the same location under the Railway Bridge (the course being the length of the Reach) in the previous week, it all went to pot on the starter’s “Go!” Various missed strokes, mini-crabs and a large amount of slide-rush meant that the boat’s course was offset and the ability to catch in time degraded to the level of their first ever outing, one member of stroke-side ending up in complete anti-phase to his strokeman. As a result, Queens’ rowed off into the distance and Leonidas frenetically drifted down the course to the finish line.
Having gotten this horrendous display of rowing out of the way, things surely could only go better in the consolation race, having been drawn against Peterhouse. After a bit of start-line chaos involving Peterhouse bribing the Race Marshalls with various items (including an aubergine) to try and get a half-length head-start and Leonidas’ coach counter-bribing them with large amounts of confectionary (as in accordance with the rules of the regatta), the crews started level and Leonidas pulled off a start they knew they had the capability to do. Having surged out to a ½ a length lead off the start, one of the Peterhouse crew caught a crab and Leonidas quickly surged to a length lead. Despite Peterhouse recovering their boat speed, Leonidas proved too strong for them and powered away to a 2 length lead. This lead kept extending, and the Railway Bridge was in sight when Lady Luck decided once and for all that this was not to be Leonidas’ day. Being stationed on the Meadow side, racing down towards to the Railway Bridge finishing line, one member of stroke-side caught a crab. This had the dual effect of having to stop the boat so that he could recover it and offsetting the cox’s line slightly too far towards the bank. At this point, Peterhouse were so far behind that the race could easily have still been won, particularly with the finishing line so close. However, an incredibly rapid restart resulted in an incredibly spectacular crash into the bank. To this day, spectators don’t understand how Leonidas managed to get up enough boat speed in less than 10 strokes such that a good foot and a half of the bow was physically embedded in the bank. If the bow hadn’t been so far embedded, Leonidas could still have pushed off and won the race, but it was to no avail. Eventually, after Bow and 2 (with some spectator assistance) had gotten out of the boat and extracted the boat from the bank (with a good deal of mud still on the bow), Leonidas limped over the line with a broken bow-seat (so great was the impact!), no bowball (lost in the bank) and severely battered pride. After this severe spell of bad-luck, things can surely only get better for NMLeonidas!