In Cambridge rowing tradition, the Eaglets dressed up in silly costumes for the famous Christmas Head!Need proof? Our excited Eaglets dressed as PacMan ghosts (with PacMan as their cox) were captured posing on the bank outside the boathouses waiting for their division to boat by the Cambridge Diary.

The Novice women, our beloved Eaglets had another great day on the river! 
The weather might have gotten colder but that did not stop these little eaglets from flying! While the sun was out, temperatures on the Cam last Saturday hovered just above zero degrees Celsius which made for a chilling marshalling for Clare Novice Regatta, our second novice race of the term.
Learning from Emma Sprints, our genius eaglets found the best way keep that rate 26 feeling: warming up to Uptown Girl. (Seriously, check out the Reel, it is too good to miss!) And their efforts paid off! In their first race against Kings the eaglets were able to maintain a strong rhythm pushing long and strong throughout the 800m course down the Reach. While the race was neck-and-neck for the first half, the eaglets were able to pull away to win by over a boat length! A stunning start to the day.
While deservingly tired, the eaglets marshalled to race again, this time against Caius. The eaglets knew Caius was a hard draw but put their all into their second heat. After a slight blade clash off the start, the eaglets couldn’t quite keep up with Caius down the reach but gave them a good fight—the best we could have asked for. After a race well rowed, the eaglets returned to roost at the 99s singing their reprise of Uptown Girl and getting in the festive mood with an off-key version of Last Christmas. Nothing can kill the vibes of this boat!
A big congratulations to all our novice rowers, be it their first or second race, and to our novice cox on her successful first race! While two 800m sprints felt like a lot, the pressure is on for the 2,700m marathon of novice Fairbairns this coming Thursday!

The Eddies Eaglets have officially fledged from the nest! Our novice women soared in their first race on Sunday at Emma Sprints dressed in their finest (hand-crafted!) eagle masks. With Eddie the Eagle tapped to their bow, the Eaglets braved through yellow-flag-worthy winds—they truly learned to fly in a storm. In their first race against Fitz they built up to an astonishing rate 38(!) off the start. When Fitz caught a crab early on, the Eaglets were able to soar past them to a quick victory (settling to a far more reasonable rate 28). 

We had the first two novice taster sessions over the weekend - they were fully subscribed and great fun was had by all! With ten novices & five seniors there were plenty of hands on the boat. Many hands make light work and all that....!
The sessions kicked off with a talk from either one of our women's coaches Matt/Abbie, or a senior rower explaining the different parts of the rowing stroke, and the separation of movements. After a quick demo it was the novice's turn to show us what they've got! Once the basics were established we all mucked in to get our lovely 'Lily' boat out of the boat house - no easy task given that she sits four racks up!

Once Lily was safely out and in the water we went through the basic calls/commands that our cox Alannah was likely to use in the outing, and then got some of the novices in on stroke side whilst we held down the riggers, so that they could practice taking a stroke. Once everyone had had a go at this it was time to push off. Each batch of novices got to row to Jesus lock and back - assisted by having seniors in stroke, 2 & bow. On both days everyone did extremely well & we even had them taking a few strokes in sixes!!!! 

After the outing, everyone mucked in to give Lily a thorough sponge down, rinse and dry before heading upstairs to enjoy some well deserved schnaaaaacks! The keen beans then headed to our favourite pub across the water - the Fort St George! They really should sponsor us....

As well as our water tasters we are also running some FUN ERGs in the evenings at College. These sessions spend some time going over the separation, some steady state rowing with feedback from our seniors, and finish with a fast paced, action packed ERG relay - QERG's style!

We have a busy fortnight ahead with a further SEVEN taster sessions scheduled, as well as more fun ERG's. If you've attended one already, feel free to sign up to more, and if you're totally new to this - fill out our interest form so that we can send you all the details you need to know!

Eddie's had a strong start to term, with our crews braving the chilly temperatures last week to get in some quality time on the river
Our novice crews were also hard at work, with the men's crew getting an invaluable coached session at the Cambridge Rowing Tank, and the women's crew crushing it at City Winter Head-to-Head by coming in third!
There's a lot of great rowing to look forward to in Lent and if you'd like to be a part of that, don't hesitate to drop a comment or message. There's absolutely no prior experience required and we'd be happy to have you!