Yes - I remember Cambridge had a very bad run in the 80s because of that - but then they started playing the same game and playing it somewhat better.
I don't know the current situation, but I understood that Cambridge and Oxford had different rules for qualifying people to row for the University, which in recent years tended to mean that Oxford's crews were older and hence stronger and more experienced.
What? you mean they have to stop for a snog on the river bank?
Yes - it is an interesting choice to be in the blues boat. You give over a large proportion of one year of your life just for a single 18minute row down the Thames that, win or lose, doesn't really lead on to anything more. You can see it as a bit of fun for the established athletes who are or are aiming to be international rowers but for a cox?
If by Cambridge you mean Oxbridge (?) I would agree. Undergrads in their first degree. A few years ago one of the Cambridge foreign "post grads" left the university shortly after rowing, and winning, the Boat Race. Not the intent of the founders, I am sure.
Ditto; I used to stroke our first eight (no, NO, don't say it!) and was invited to trial for the lightweight crew, but luckily thought it best to concentrate on the studies; I would never have made the grade anyway). But I did get to row at Henley one summer, which was fun (if rather short-lived...)
16.93m or 17.63m depending on the model they have chosen.
As an undergraduate who had learned to row at Oxford, I very narrowly missed getting into the 1981 Blue Boat. I rowed many times in that boat with Sue Brown coxing. You could have had a glimse of me on all the BBC and ITV news programs on TV on the day of the trial eights race when the other boat sank.
Cambridge and Hull.There are only two universities in the UK.
There used to be some rather good posters outside the Cambridge engineering department inviting people to try out, and pointing out that members of the squad were statistically more likely to get a 1st or 2:1 than their peers. I'm sure there was a correlation being dressed up as causation there.
You have moved in exaulted circumstances. Rowing a tub 4 on the Severn at Tewkesbury, I bow before you ? I did however enjoy it as exercise as I could no longer play a proper game like Rugby due to a head injury.
I rowed for my school junior coxed four in the Glasgow Schools' Regatta. We came second (of two boats) by 1/4 mile (over a 3/4 mile course). They replaced me and four weeks later the amended crew won the junior fours at Henley.
I only rowed for my college at Cambridge, and swapped from rowing to coxing during my second year - - I caught a crab during the Fairbairn Cup race (effectively a time trial over about 3 miles) at the end of the autumn term, caused entirely by the fact that I was really too light for an endurance race and my wrists simply refused to go on feathering the oar! I only rowed at college; rowing in eights is an enormous commitment as if one person doesn't turn up, it ruins the practice session for everyone - an eight has to practise as a crew to get everything working together. I admire and to some extent envied those who made the commitment to row after leaving the university regime, but I had other commitments that meant that rowing would have to be secondary - and that wouldn't have been fair to the crew.