Talk:May Bumps
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I'm just being picky, but in this article there's a reference to the bottom men's division and women's division having only nine crews each, and all other divisions having seventeen...
I speak as a Cambridge grad, veteran of Bumps racing, and former DU (divisional umpire) and SU (senior umpire) at May Bumps (not to mention Chief Umpire at Summer Eights in The Other Place).
All Cambridge Bumps divisions have eighteen crews racing. The order of racing is determined by how the crews finished on the previous day's racing (for the first day of Mays, the "previous day" is considered to be the last day of racing from the previous year's races) and includes decisions taken after racing. (See Bumps). The crew on the eighteenth "bung" or "station" of the first division, for example, is the crew who finished first in the second division earlier that day, who get a chance to "bump up" into that division. The bottom division (for each sex) has nobody to drag up, so there is an eighteenth position in that division.
The "nine crews" myth probably comes from the fact that not all the positions in the start order are determined by last year's racing - for example, colleges will not necessarily have the numbers to run the same number of boats every year. The bottom at-least-nine places are reserved for the fastest qualifiers from the Getting-On Races (see http://www.firstandthird.org/tables/rowing/bumpworkings.shtml#gor). I say "at-least-nine" because if crews higher than the ninth position in the bottom division drop out (usually for lack of numbers, or possibly lack of boats to row in) then extra places become available.
In Cambridge the qualifiers' qualifying times are not made public, and they are inserted into the bottom of the list in a random order. The times of those crews not qualifying are published so they can see how close they came. In Oxford all times are published (they call it "rowing on") so the crews can work out whether they are faster or slower than the crews around them in the starting order. At Cambridge it is considered that using this information would be unsporting (since the other hundred-odd crews do not have similar information about the crews in their divisions) so it is kept confidential.
My college (Fitz) didn't always have enough women for a second women's eight, and only sometimes had enough men for a fourth men's eight, so those crews would have to compete for the "getting-on" places. When I rowed in our second eight in Lents (rowing in the bottom women's division gave me time to get back to the boathouse, get changed, and cox our men in Men's Div. 1) we "got on" but were placed in position 18 (i.e. Very Bottom of the River). lcjones
- Speaking also as a former DU/SU and recently departed alumnus, and the author of this particular article, it's actually no mistake - the bottom divisions of the men's and women's Mays now does have only 9 crews each. Due to the shifting demographics of the university, the number of women rowing now almost matches the number of men rowing. The Getting on Race (GoR) of the 2003 May Bumps was well over subscribed with women's crews trying to get on, whereas the men didn't have very many competed places, in fact a quick check of the actual results reveals 4 men's VIIIs competing in the GoR, all of which got on - even with those 4 on, the men's bumps were still 3 crews short of 6 full divisions. As a result, the rules were changed for the 2004 May Bumps, to remove the bottom half of the Men's 6th division (thereafter I'll refer to it as M6), and replace it with half of a Women's 5th division (W5). So the bottom men's and women's division genuinely has only 9 crews each.
- The format is that all crews from M6 and W5 row to the start together, with the men's half of the division lining up on bung-lines 1 to 9, and women's half lining up on bung-lines 10 to 18. The first set of cannons (4 minues, 1 minute, go) is for M6. I think the sequence for the 2nd set of cannons for W5 (again 4 mins, 1 min, go) starts about a minute after the go signal for M6, provided that any hold ups/blockages etc. have been identified and cleared.
- Whilst you could argue that each division apart from the M6 and W5 has 18 crews (and yes, each division does have 18 racing including the sandwich boat), only 17 are part of a division at the end of each day.
- In 2006, the rules change again - and "bumps" becomes non-contact before grassy. Richard B - ex 1st & 3rd 17:39, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
Richard - thanks for your comments. Just goes to show how much can change in not very long. This "double division" sounds like a very suitable solution. Nice original article, by the way. Did you have a hand in the Bumps Race section as well? lcjones - 26 June 2006
