Fitz had closed to a length on King’s on Wednesday, so the crew was more relaxed going into the second day of bumps. This was especially true for those of us with little experience, as the realisation that bumps was something we could do sunk in. With no facial injuries to any of the crew, we were feeling better, and we could still laugh at the hours Henryk had spent that morning trying to eat a single Weetabix.
The busy banks of the day before were not repeated, with only Steve available to bank party us. However, his focus clearly on us and not the female spectators out enjoying the sun, we knew we were still in good hands. This would mean that we could not have a video of our performance to watch at the end of the week, unlike the other 3 days, but we had more pressing concerns.
Our start was solid, with Fitz quickly dropping off behind us. However, where the day before we had really attacked for the bump, today we seemed to expect the whistles to come. This meant it was not until the motorway bridge that we really picked up our boatspeed, again dealing well with the rough water left by the rest of the division. When we did pick up a whistle, however, our push was very strong, and we quickly closed the gap coming towards first post, which was emerging as the finishing post of the new ‘Binson short course. While their cox managed to get strokeside of us, meaning we couldn’t get the same bump from my blade as the day before, we rowed straight through them to take a bump in virtually the same place as before.
Our row back was more serious than the day before, as we realised that we could be on for a very good week indeed. The atmosphere was relaxed by the discovery of a video of Day 1’s bump, as the Fitz camera man sought to keep us out of shot all the way until he could avoid it no more, despite the all-pervading sound of Jess’ calls, and we enjoyed a 3rd consecutive pasta faff.