Crew: 279 Hughes Hall, Cambridge Eights Head of the River (HoRR) 2018 To purchase this photo, or to see pricing information for Prints and Downloads, click the blue ‘Add to Cart’ button at the top-right of the page.

After last year’s cancellation, the Head of the River Race (HoRR) 2018 went ahead last Sunday with crews coming from all over the UK and overseas. Our M1 crew was pumped to finally conquer the Tideway as most have never even rowed in the Thames before. Despite the hassle of being in a much lower division, the M1 kept their focus and started their race strong after taking inspiration from higher division boats that raced beforehand. From the start line they had Corpus Christi M1 on their tail which gave our M1 a crew to push off from (just like in Bumps!). Soon after they quickly found themselves caught up in a 4-way sandwich boat with 2 much slower crews ahead of them. One crew decided not to give way which lead to a few heated calls but both our M1 and Corpus managed to pass by the chaos. This was when Corpus made their move and tried their very best to overtake our M1, but to their dismay they had to hold on with the M1 side by side for another few hundred metres of the race. With a better racing line, Corpus edged away only to have our M1 following behind them closely throughout the rest of the race. Passing by the Hammersmith Bridge with cheers from Hughesian spectators brought the fire back into our M1. This led to them passing by more boats with great determination. With 1km left out of the race, the cox called for a power call with the Corpus M1 as the crew to chase to the finish line.

After another morning of shoveling and gritting the towpath, CUCBC gave the permission for all divisions to race for the final day! Our M2 went off first, hungry for their 3rd Bump in 3 days of racing. They started off strong and rowed their best row so far to close in on Trinity Hall M3. With Trinity Hall clearly intimidated by our M2, they got bumped just at the First Post Corner after our M2 cox took a nice inside line to get the overlap!

With abated winds and a temperature of 2°C, today’s relatively tropical weather compared with yesterday’s, set smiles and high spirits in W1. At the gun, W1 jumped on to a great start, immediately starting to gain on Pembroke W2 and leaving Clare W2 behind. The cox box went off at around the Motorway bridge, but the loyal bank party kept the crew informed of what was ahead. At First Post Reach, Pembroke W2 held the canvas situation for a good 10-15 strokes. A final ‘fire’ push made sure that W1’s bow ball kissed Pembroke’s stern, thus sealing their third and final bump of the week!

Rowing down to the start line with the knowledge that both M2 and W1 bumped up again, M1 was pumped for a great ending to our Lent Bumps campaign. Right from the start they went off hard and fast to leave behind Queens M2. Our M1 managed to get a length on Downing M2 quite quickly. As they passed the Motorway Bridge, the distance went down to half a length and soon after M1 had canvas on Downing. This is when our infamous “footplate 10” call was made and our men gave as much power as possible in each stroke to get the final bump before First Post Corner!

This has been the best Lent Bumps Campaign for Hughes Hall! Both W1 and M1 tied for the highest 1st Hughes Hall boat ranking in Lent Bumps and M2 with the highest ever ranking for a 2nd Hughes Hall boat. Well done to everyone involved and on to the much deserved celebrations at tonight’s Boat Club Dinner! 😀

Despite the blizzard conditions on the way to Baitsbite Lock, W1 set off the race with a solid start. They kept their strokes long and strong, steadily closing the distance with Clare W2. Just as W1 approached First Post Corner, Clare’s strokeside blades were seen struggling with the bank. W1 secured their bump by sending their bow ball past Clare’s bow ball. Our W1 is now solidly placed in Division 2!

The M1 went off strong with Pembroke M2 chasing them for revenge. Pembroke managed to close in on our M1 with their fast start but this just pushed our men to go even harder. This resulted in our M1 closing the gap on Queens M2 pretty quickly and ended up bumping them after the Motorway Bridge before the First Post Corner.

Both W1 and M1 are now tied in the highest ever Hughes Hall boat position in the Lent Bumps! Great job on the strong performance! #YeahHughes

All races were sadly cancelled for the day due to the combination of very low temperature, high wind and windchill, and frozen towpath surface. This affected all 3 of our crews.

Following from the cancellation, CUCBC gave the permission for all the boat clubs to independently grit the towpath this evening to ensure its safety for umpiring tomorrow’s races. Several Hughes Hall Boat Club members took the opportunity to lend a hand along with the rest of the student rowing community. This effort will continue tomorrow morning prior to hopefully the start of another day of Bumps racing!

After our W1 and M1 secured a place in Division 2 yesterday, both crews had a much deserved rest from today’s less than ideal weather conditions.

M2 was our only crew racing today with heavy snow falling from the sky. At the start, the strong wind blew the boat to the bank causing a few missed strokes but without panicking, they pushed away from the bank and rowed together. They were slowly gaining on Pembroke M3 until they caught a crab after the Motorway Bridge. This allowed Queens’ M4 to catch up on them to half a boat length. This did not phased our M2 crew as they fixed it back quickly and regained their momentum. Pushing away from Queens’ M4 immediately, they rowed pass the stationary Pembroke M3 just before the First Post Corner without realizing the bump has happened. Apparently Pembroke thought they hit something (an ice berg?) and decided to just stop rowing?! Many congratulations to M2 for recovering well on such unexpected conditions to earn your 2nd bump of the week! #WhosHallHughesHall

Yesterday Hughes Hall W1 celebrated their first regatta victory, winning the W2 division in the Pembroke Regatta! While leading from the very start in the first two races (beating Caius W2 by 2 ½ lengths, and Sidney W2 easily), the last two races against Downing W2 and Pembroke Alumnae were a big fight into the finish. In the semi-final, Downing W2 were leading by ¾ lengths down the Reach, but the cox called for power to take seat by seat down and to “destroy them” – which the girls did, winning by 2 lengths! In the final, Pembroke Alumnae had a very fast start but our W1 fought back and won the last race of the day by 3 lengths!

In a ceremony on Saturday at Emmanuel College boat house, Hughes Hall christened a new elite Stampfli eight which will be used by the club’s top crews in the upcoming Bumps campaign.

In recent years Hughes Hall Boat Club (HHBC) has held an extremely strong position on the river, winning the Pegasus Cup three times, an accolade no other Cambridge College has achieved, and the Michell Cup twice[1]. Amongst HHBC alumni is world rowing champion Tom Ransley who competed in the Rio 2016 Olympics to win a gold medal for the British crew in the men’s eight, two recent Cambridge University Boat Race Captains, Henry Hoffstot and Lance Tredell, and Rosemary Ostfeld, the Cambridge cox from the memorable 2016 Women’s Blue Boat Race. In addition to this, four Hughesians competed at the 2017 World Rowing Championships, where Patrick Eble (2016) took home a silver medal and Ben Ruble (2014), who rowed for USA, placed fourth in the B final. Hughes Hall rowers also made up more than half of the Cambridge Blue boat in the Boat Race last year.

The acquisition of the new boat is the result of generous support from Hughes Hall alumni and friends following the death of Hughes Hall Development Director, and HHBC supporter, Richard Berg Rust who began to raise money for the project shortly before his passing.  Former boat club President and Men’s Captain, Andrew Stark, remarked “This new boat fills a longstanding need to provide the best equipment for the overwhelming number of world-class, university rowers that HHBC has and continues to attract year-on-year.”

Current boat club President, Nazhif Zaini, commented “With the rapid rise of HHBC up the ranks in the University Bumps, having an elite boat to match the increasingly experienced and competitive rowers is advantageous for continued success. We are truly honoured for this new addition.”

The new boat has been named ‘Duke of Aymer’.

[1] The Pegasus Cup and Michell Cup were jointly awarded to Hughes Hall Lucy Cavendish College Boat Club, as the boat clubs were joint until September 2017.

Photo Credit: Chris Draper

The Robinson Head race is an opportunity for crews to test the entire course of Bumps and both of our M1 and M2 took on the challenge.

This being their first race of the term, the M2 charged the whole course with undoubtedly their best rowing thus far to clock a time of 8:37.8.

The M1 had their eyes on the boat ahead of them, Downing M2, that had a 30s head start. With a steady and focused three quarters of the race, our M1 finally had Downing M2 within reach. As they passed the railway bridge, the cox called for a “kill move” and our M1 charged up on Downing M2 to execute a quick overtake and finish the race before them. M1 finished the race with a commendable time of 7:51.2, which was 46s faster than when we entered 2 years ago!

Well done to both crews! #GoHughes