Cambridge Sinks but Race Goes On

The Cambridge University Boat Race crew sank in a heavy squall at Putney yesterday. Their boat was smashed beyond possibility of repair by tomorrow, when they meet Oxford. But the race will go on. Cambridge will row in their second boat.

Cambridge went down in high waves just off the boathouses, watched by a crowd on the bank which included the Oxford crew. They drifted down on to a large buoy in midstream to which a tug was attached. Six of them scrambled up the buoy on to the tug and the other three were picked out of the water by the following launch. The boat, spread-eagled across the buoy, was heavily battered before it drifted clear. Conditions were rough when Cambridge went out, but not impossible, and it was a sudden squall which blew up just after they started rowing which wrecked them.

Before they had been going for a minute it was apparent that they would go down as the wind increased and blew the tide into white-topped waves. Cambridge disappeared into a wall of flying spray, and the cox appeared to be trying to steer inside the buoy to get toward the bank, but the boat became straddled. A crew which accompanied Cambridge on their row found safety on the concrete steps on the Middlesex side of the river, but they too, sank, trying to fight their way back across to the boat-house.

At the R.A.C.^* in London, where the crew are staying, Michael Sweeney, the Cambridge president said: "One man has a scratch on his leg, but we are all well. We are lucky to be so well."

^* (R.A.C. - Royal Automobile Club.)

(Daily Worker)