Information AboutMay Bumps |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT MAY BUMPS | |
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The May Bumps (also May Races, Mays) is a Rowing race held on the River Cam in Cambridge . The races are open to all college boat clubs from the University Of Cambridge and CCAT Boat Club , the boat club for members of Anglia Ruskin University . The May Bumps takes place over four days in mid-June and is run as a Bumps Race . The equivalent bumping races at the end of February or start of March are called the Lent Bumps . STRUCTURE OF THE MAY BUMPS The races are run in divisions, with 6 divisions for men's crews (referred to as M1, M2, M3....M6) and 5 divisions for women's crews (referred to as W1, W2, W3..W5). The top 5 men's and top 4 women's divisions contain 17 crews each. M6 and W5 each contain only 9 crews. Each crew contains 8 rowers and one coxswain, meaning that a total of 171 crews took part in 2005, with around 1500 participants. With each division, crews row to the start, pull into the bank, with each crew separated by a distance of about 1½ boat lengths (approximately 30m or 90ft). The coxswain must hold a length of chain fixed to the bank before the starting signal, which is the firing of a cannon. Two warning cannons are fired, one to signal four minutes before the start and another to signal one minute before the start. A third cannon is fired to signal the start of each division. Once the "go" signal is fired, a crew must attempt to catch up with the crew ahead of it and ''bump'' (physically touch or overtake it) before the crew behind does the same to them. A crew which bumps or is bumped must pull to the side of the river to allow other crews to continue racing. A crew which neither bumps the crew ahead or is bumped by the crew behind before crossing the finishing post is said to have ''rowed over''. A crew which bumps then swaps places with the crew that it bumped in the following day's racing. A crew which rows over stays in the same position in the following day's racing. If a crew finishes at the top of a division, apart from the first division, then it may row at the bottom of the next division to try and get into that division. This crew is called the ''sandwich boat''. The process is repeated over four days, allowing crews to move up or down in the overall order of boats. The finish order of one year's May Bumps are then used as the starting order of the following year's races. The ultimate aim is to try and finish ''Head of the River'' (also said as gaining the ''Headship''), i.e. 1st position in division 1. This is only realistically possible for crews starting in the top 5 places. For other crews, the aim is to rise at least 4 places to try and set themselves up for an opportunity to take the Headship in future years. 2005 FINISHING POSITIONS (1ST DIVISIONS) Men's 1st Division # Caius # Lady Margaret # Trinity Hall # St. Catharine's # Queens' # Downing # First And Third Trinity # Churchill # Robinson # Jesus # Magdalene # Pembroke # Emmanuel # Clare # Christ's # Selwyn # First And Third Trinity II Women's 1st Division # Jesus # Pembroke # Emmanuel # Caius # Clare # Girton # Lady Margaret # Trinity Hall # Newnham # Magdalene # Christ's # Downing # Churchill # Selwyn # First And Third Trinity # New Hall # King's CREWS FINISHING HEAD OF THE RIVER Men's May Bumps (1887 - 2005) NB. May Bumps were cancelled between 1915 and 1918, and in 1940 due to war.
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