For the viewing public, and those involved in the racing, Summer Eights 2025 gave some reasons to be fearful. The Thamesis Regatta, the very first novice regatta of the year, had been cancelled earlier in the academic year due to flooding, the Isis bursting its banks and leaving some boathouses unreachable. Torpids was run on half-divs, with only the top crews competing, leaving many novice rowers equivalent bumps experience.
Could this Eights live up the legacy of all the divisions and crews that had thundered down the Isis before it? Would a batch of rowers and coxes who had little-to-no experience in a racing format with plenty of potential for chaos produce safe and engaging racing?
In short? It did, and they could.
The week of Eights began with its inaugural staple, Rowing On. For most non-guaranteed crews, this is a pleasant but not uncompetitive start to the competition. The cut-off time for was 3:16 for Men’s crews and 3:52 for Women’s Crews. Only five women’s boats failed to qualify (admittedly out of a slightly smaller contingent competing for qualification) whilst 21 men’s boats did not make the cut. As someone who rowed on, it was a preview of Bumps. A 800m sprint, at a pace impossible to maintain over the full Eights course, which left the crew confident and qualified for the real deal on Wednesday.
The day arrived inclemently, with temperamental weather alternating between spitting rain and sharp sunlight. With several colleges fielding large numbers of fixed crews plus beer boats – motley crews of ex-Blues or M2-3 washouts, wearing their finest shirt and tie in the case of New College, or tasteful references to Camden Hells for St Edmund’s Hall – seven divisions were organised, racing lasting from just after 12pm till past 6pm, covered live, day-by-day by this paper and racedesk.
A sense of frisson was present, like at the demonstration of a new car or the first appearance of a football team under new management, driven by that same curiosity about what might happen this year. Many divisions had to wait significantly longer than five minutes on bunglines to find out, as houseboats, pleasure steamers and swans decided that 2025 was their year on the Isis.
But when the starting gun fired, the week began in earnest.
As with any good Oxford event, there was its fair share of drama. Balliol College M3, in attempting to secure its position in Men’s Division V as the sandwich boat, ended up spearing into a houseboat on the left bank of the Isis. Not only did this leave a sizeable hole in the houseboat, but the damage done to M3’s Empacher relegated them to a less impressive boat for the rest of the event. An Oriel College bump on Lady Margaret Hall left serious damage to LMH’’s boat, whilst OxRow reported generational levels of rattling from Oriel crews when faced with their own chant after failing to bump.
Beyond the mishaps of the week, the true focus was on the battle for headship, blades and spoons. Oriel had sat happily atop the men’s divisions for the first three days of Eights, as Christ Church and Keble fell away, before being caught on the last day by an incredible charging Wolfson crew. Christ Church W1’s headship defence imploded after penalty bumps for themselves and Pembroke for impeding University’s W1, who then lost headship to Wadham who, on the last day, were pipped by a Pembroke crew that now holds both Eights and Torpids headships. 21 crews got blades in all, including Somerville W1-3, several boats from Reuben college and Teddy’s beerboat, with a generational over-bump of eight boats in one day leading to them climbing from Division VI to V. 16 boats received spoons, including ex-headship boat Christ Church W1, and two crews from St Catherine’s, Corpus Christi and Jesus, respectively.
Each boatclub could be proud of the efforts of their rowers, whether they got headship, blades, a bump, rowed over or got bumped day-by-day. Spoons and blades might memorialise misfortune or masterful performances on the river, but they don’t capture the scores of training sessions and listless hours spent building a crew over what is the busiest term of Oxford life. You might have just missed out on blades, like Univ’s W2, or won them like the M2. But by turning up for training when the rest of Oxford made the sane choice of staying in bed, carb-loading with the most disgustingly large portions of pasta available, and enduring the aches and pains of rowing, any college rower can and should look back with joy and pride at Summer Eights 2025.
In short, Eights this year delivered the same racing thrills and excitement that it has always strived to, with close racing, drama and glory all occurring on the same stretch of dirty river. It was everything hoped for, and more.
