I am very lucky that every evening, as I work at my bedroom desk, I am able to look out over Grange Road and see the unending stream of cyclists going to and from their daily activities. In the past week I have been especially lucky that, in this current spate of freezing cold rain, I am not one of them. “Unlucky sod” I think to myself as I see yet another young academic get completely drenched. Shivering, soaked, and still somehow sweaty from a high-speed ride across town, cycling in late November is an ordeal saved for Dante’s yet-to-be-described tenth level of Hell. Yet it seems that, despite my best intentions, I am not saved from this inevitable experience. This is, of course, because I am one of the many idiots who enjoy sailing. Trade-out jeans and a poncho for a wetsuit and buoyancy-aid, and your vision of the 2025 Oxford Magnum is essentially perfect.
So, with the scene set, what was the event actually like? Well it was windy and, on Saturday, a bit of a mess. The first morning was busy with lots of races against teams ranging from schools to alumni. It was busy partly because it was just the first morning of a sailing event, and partly due to our greenness as an overall squad. The whole Saturday was a bit of a baptism of fire. For our first team (Blue), in their first event of the year, it was an opportunity to practice our teamwork and focus on the key moments through the races. For the seconds (Crimson), in their second event in as many weeks, they focussed on putting into practice the learnings from Birmingham. For all the teams present there was the added goal of remaining upright. This was not always achieved.
It was also an opportunity to compete in a ‘single change swiss league’ event (potentially foreshadowing changes to the Cam Cup). I would now usually give an explanation of what this means but unfortunately I have literally no idea. And given that I enjoy human interaction, I have precisely zero interest in ever finding out. Whatever this means, it led to chances to race the same teams and immediately try to improve the ways that we had originally messed up. Because of this I can proudly say that I am a convert to this alpine-inspired format and much prefer it to round-robin.
Saturday continued on and after a series of very tight races, there followed a very tasty social and some very generous hosting by the Merryweather family.
Sunday lived up to its name with bright blue skies over Farmoor. After a late call for cut-down sails, both the Cambridge teams managed to get to work and improved massively from the first day to the second. Blue lost only one race on the second day, with Crimson performing extremely well against some of the strongest alumni groups that can be found. This was not enough for either team to make it to the semi-finals but everyone left feeling very happy with their performance and knowing exactly where to focus on for the rest of our season. Crimson now enjoys a final weekend of training in Grafham whilst Blue go on to the Bristol Brew next Saturday. Overall, our experience of ‘the other place’ wasn’t too bad and we’re excited to see where we go from here.
Our results for the 2025 Oxford Magnum – Cambridge Blue (1st team) finished 9th place, second of the University teams. Cambridge Crimson (2nd team) finished 18th, 7th of the University teams.
Before I forget, Cambridge student Robbie McDonald won the event with his own team.
