MORE NEKKIDNESS

Yet another naked rowing calendar hoping to grace your wall for the next twelve months. This time it's Edinburgh University Boat Club who are trying to raise funds to buy much-needed new equipment by getting out their equipment.

Members of the men's and women's squads have posed in a number of rowing-themed pictures by photographer Devon Walshe; blades, boats, in the club's Edinburgh boathouse on the Union Canal; all that's missing is their clothes!

The calendars are now on sale, with details on the club's website -
rowing.eusu.ed.ac.uk/fundraising/naked_calendar.html

THE BEST LAID PLANS...

Competitors at the Walton SBH this weekend, found themselves lining up to race down the course at Dorney instead, after strong stream conditions on the Upper Thames, forced the organisers to opt for plan B.

Mind you, it was so fecking cold that the TSS boys really should have thought twice before wearing white lycra tights - as they clearly showed they'd suffered same fate as infamous brass monkey...

The 1st division was late, as once the first three crews had gone through the start, the timing team suddenly realised they couldn't read numbers and had to start over again. It took a further 20 mins to change to plan C, so there were lots of very cold and grumpy scullers by the time they came to race.

SJA AWARDS

The combined talents of the UK's Sporting Meeja-scum decended en masse on the Brewery in central London last week, for their annual christmas piss-up (otherwise known as the Sport's Journalists Awards).

Hosted by the Sports Journalists Association, the lunch was attended by around 400 journalists, athletes and guests, including two BARJ (British Association of Rowing Journalists) tables kindly provided by GB rowing sponsors Siemens.

The Awards were hosted by Barry Davies and a good time was had by all: Katherine Grainger picked up UK Sport’s award for fair play and inspiration (a large glass trohpy which wouldn't look out of place as a murder weapon in an episode of CSI) and Andy Ripley did a sterling job of introducing the raffle (which raised £3500 for the Prostrate Cancer Charity) starting with the immortal line "Barry has a penis..., and illustrating exactly why he fits in so well at Tideway Scullers.

CUBC SHUN TRUE LOVE FOR ONE NIGHT STAND

The first of the trials eight races for the 2008 boatrace took place on a cold but sunny Tideway on Tuesday afternoon.

The Cambridge crews ‘One Night Stand’ (strengthened by three returning Blues - President Dano, cox Rebecca and Tom Edwards) and ‘True Love’ (missing Marco Espin who was ill) raced over the course,

In the end, (and perhaps unsurpisingly for CUBC men), One night stand won the day, beating True Love by three lengths).

The Oxford crews (rumoured to be "bitter" and "twisted"...**grin** - ED) race this afternoon. One of their coaching launches was spotted making a unaccompanied bid for freedom on Monday as it drifted away from the bank at Putney - you'd think they'd have realised the Thames was tidal by now...

Keep an eye on the official website for race reports and crew lists
www.theboatrace.org/article/newsandmedia/latestnews

SCULLERS HEAD DATA PR0N

It may be uber-geeky but something tells me that there's segment of the readership who just love this sort of thing - i.e. a salacious representation of boring data as pretty-coloured pictures - even if they won't admit it...

Attached are two PDF files, giving an alternative view of the results of the Scullers head for the last 2 years:

The chart plots everyone’s finish time against their start position, with each sculler colour-coded by category

Each category label (eg “MVC”) on the chart is placed at that whole category’s average finish time and average new-entry start position

The Top 100 or so correlate well with previous year’s finish position, though it also suggests that the new-entry start order might be better redesigned.

• 2007 Scullers' Head
  
• 2006 Scullers' Head

EXTERIOR DECORATION

Another contribution from Novice Fairbairns; courtesy of the Queen's novice men.

http://www.rowphoto.co.uk/events.php?event=fairbairns_2007&image=IMG_FBN07_0595.jpg&crew=109

As can be seen from the many holes in the rotten woodwork, the vessel on the receiving end is not exactly the most sea-worthy of boats.

Thought, that said, it's not often that an eight beats a cruiser in a game of who's strongest... (and they did have a bowball - at least they did before they made contact)

PRETTY PICS

Random website with some gorgeous pictures of the Tideway, mainly around the Hammersmith area - includes quite a number of rowers and boats.

Defn worth a look.

www.americangrey.co.uk

THAT COLD FEELING...

The mystery of the freezing Thames gym was finally solved at the weekend after a crack team of 'heating experts' took it upon themselves to track down the reason for the permanent low temperatures in the Burrough building, which has been forcing poor coach Lubo to wear gloves whilst using his office PC..

Confident in the knowledge that there are only so many things that can go wrong with a boiler, our intrepid explorers decided to approach the problem from a logical perspective - one possibility at a time.

Starting with the "power supply" they soon realised there wasn't one, however despite fixing that particular problem the boiler was still refusing to do anything apart from display an error message, so they moved on to option two, the "water supply".

A quick turn of the taps proved that there was nothing wrong with the wet stuff, which left them with the third and final option i.e. the "gas supply".

After carefully tracing the gas pipes from the boiler back to the meter, it soon became apparant that the lack of heating was probably down to the fact that the gas had been cut off because they, er, hadn't paid their bill...

The slug can only hope that the club in red, white and black can sweet talk British Gas into reconnecting them before their club dinner next week

Oh dear.

LOOKALIKE

Wells

Strawbridge

Sir,

I wonder if anyone else has noticed the striking similarity between that stalwart of Scrapheap Challenge, Dick Strawbridge and UL coach Pete Wells? Are they by any chance related by more than just their love of pies?

A Sculler
Chiswick

COACHING DARWIN AWARDS?

As a community, we don't always do ourselves a lot of favours - especially when being closely watched by members of other organisations based on the Tideway... Though, to be fair, some of our number have more to answer for than others; something illustrated by the attached photo of some exceptional muppetry.

About the only positive thing that can be said about the whole situation is that at least he's wearing a life-jacket, though I strongly suspect that his kill cord (unless it's 6 foot long) isn't attached anything apart from the engine.

Perhaps a timely reminder of what a prop strike can do to various parts of your anatomy (by way of some real life examples), is in order - just incase any other coaches think this sort of behaviour is a good idea.

• Jun 1949 Imogene Wittche (13), was swimming in Lake Tahoe when a 115 HP runabout bore down on her. One of her feet was cut off by the propeller and the other had to be amputated.

• 16 June 1953 Boni Buehler (25), was on Lake Arrowhead in a speedboat. She fell from the boat and was struck by its propeller. Her left arm was severed at the shoulder and her left leg mangled. Her left leg was amputated later that night.

• September 1985 Jim Nelford, a promising PGA golfer from Canada, was water skiing when he was struck by a boat propeller suffering life threatening injuries. His right arm was broken in nine places, he spent four weeks in the hospital and his PGA Tour was effectively ended.

• 4 Sept 1989 Laura Hepler (23) fell overboard and went under the boat, striking her head on the propeller. Six months pregnant, doctor's delivered 1 pound 10 ounce Shawna Hepler by Caesarean section before operating on her mother. The baby died 16 hours later. The mother, losing a 4 inch diameter piece of her skull, died on 10 Sept.

• 7 May 1992 Stacy Epping was swimming behind a houseboat when she was pulled into the propeller. Doctors and nurses worked on her for 5 hours and used 60 pints of blood to save her life.

• 6 Jun 1993 Kathryn Lewis was in a boat pulling her boyfriend on a tube. The boat turned sharply to the right, and she was ejected to the left side of the boat. The propeller struck her several times in the head and body, and she died instantly.

• 11 June 1994 Phyllis Kopytko was enjoying her 19th wedding anniversary in an 18 foot 200 HP outboard powered bass boat, when those on board were ejected from the boat and it began to circle. She located her husband who told her the boat was coming at her, she dove and managed to escape being struck, but on the second pass she was pulled into the propeller and cut over much of her body. He husband and the guide were both stuck and killed by the propeller. Phyllis Kopytko's left arm was amputated above the elbow and she has endured over 30 surgeries since the accident.

• 17 June 1995 Stephanie Booker and two friends were headed toward Charlie's Pier 121 Marina when a boat hit the rear of their craft and sped away. She remembers seeing the hull before its propeller struck her and reported she could feel her face being ripped off. Her face was almost cut into three parts.

• 20 July 1995 Shirley Jones (24), suffered major injuries when a houseboat backed into her while she was swimming. Her legs were cut severely and she died 8 days later.

• 23 July 1999 Dmitri Tertyshny was kneeling on seats in the front of a boat when it struck a wave, he fell overboard forward, the boat ran over him and its propeller struck him in the neck. He bled and quickly died.

• October 2000 Michael Davis (36), was struck by the propeller of a Skeeter boat and has since been a quadriplegic.

• 20 June 2002 Mikael Renberg a professional hockey player was boating in the Baltic Sea. While pulling up anchor, he slipped, fell into the water, tried to swim away, but was still struck by the propeller of his eight meter boat. It sliced through a muscle on his upper right arm.

• 15 Aug 2002 Paul Gallagher, age 2, was sleeping in a deck chair next to his mother on a beach in the Bahamas. An unmanned speedboat ran upon the beach, struck his mother's leg, threw his one year old brother's buggy 20 feet into the air, then the propeller struck Paul in the head. He died 5 days later.

• 2 May 2003 Ray Zook was involved in a water ski accident. His left foot was severely struck by a propeller. He suffered four broken bones, damaged ligaments, and required over 100 stitches.

• 26 May 2003 Laura Putnam was on a boat with her new fiance. They were stationary with their navigation lights on, a craft bore down on them about 2:30 am. Her body was found on June 8th with a chopping wound above her left eye.

• 25 Jun 2005 John Flemming, an Internationally famous DJ, was tubing near Brighton. He fell from the tube, and was struck by the propeller of the towboat. He suffered a collapsed lung, four broken ribs and a deep gash to his arm.

• 1 July 2005 Jacob Brochtrup (18), jumped from the rear of a boat to retrieve a ski rope just as the boat was reversed. He was struck in the leg, which was nearly severed and had to be amputated later.

• 10 Aug 2005 Alexandra Ciardi, was struck by a speedboat propeller while swimming in Italy. She died of fatal head injuries.

• 18 Aug 2006 Britteny Lindt (15), was riding an inner tube behind a jet ski when a boat swerved to avoid hitting something else and ran over her. She was struck in the neck and chest by the propeller and died about 10 minutes later.