Lent Bumps

The Lent Bumps (also Lent Races, Lents) are a set of rowing races 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 Lent Bumps takes place over five days either at the end of February or start of March and is run as a bumps race. The equivalent bumping races in mid-June are called the May Bumps.

The most recent in the series was the Lent Bumps 2008, which ran from Tuesday February 26 2008 until Saturday March 1 2008.

Structure of the Lent Bumps

The races are run in divisions, with 4 divisions for men's crews (referred to as M1, M2, M3 and M4) and 3 divisions for women's crews (referred to as W1, W2 and W3). The top 3 men's and top 2 women's divisions contain 17 crews each. M4 and W3 each contain 18 crews. Each crew contains 8 rowers and one coxswain, meaning that a total of 121 crews took part in 2005, with around 1000 participants. Unlike the May Bumps, rowers trialling for spaces in University crews are not allowed to take part in the Lents.

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. In the Lent Bumps, University regulations have meant that the races are now held over 5 days, with each division having one day off. The finish order of one year's Lent 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.

2008 Finishing positions (1st divisions)

Men's 1st Division

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Women's 1st Division

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Crews finishing Head of the River

Men's Lent Bumps (1887 - 2008)

NB. Lent Bumps were cancelled between 1915 and 1918 due to war, and in 1895 and 1963 due to ice. The Lents in 1888 was not completed due to the death of an oarsman. When the races ceased, Camb|JE were in 1st position. The Lent Bumps 2001 were not completed due to an outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease in the UK. The outbreak closed the towpath along the river, where all of the umpiring for the bumps takes place. When the races were abandoned on Friday 2nd March 2001, Camb|EM were in 1st position.

In 1919, college 1st eights did not race.

Women's Lent Bumps (1976 - 2008)

NB. The Women's Lent Bumps were not completed in 2001 due to an outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease in the UK. When the races were abandoned on Friday 2nd March 2001, Camb|JE were in 1st position.

ee also

*Lent Bumps 2006
*Lent Bumps 2007
*Lent Bumps 2008
*

External links

* [http://www.firstandthird.org/tables/rowing/bumpsintro.shtml Intro to Cambridge bumps] from the Trinity College boat club
* [http://www.mcshane.org/bumps/ Cambridge bumps charts] — archive of the past decade's results
* [http://www.cucbc.org/ Cambridge University Combined Boat Clubs]