Cambridge University Women’s Boat Club (CUWBC) will open their 2016/17 racing season this weekend with 6 crews attending the British Rowing Senior Championships at the National Watersports Centre, Nottingham.

The Club will field three coxless fours on Saturday and three eights on Sunday. The crews will compete against other universities and open clubs with time trials in the morning and six-lane side-by-side racing in the afternoon. In 2015, CUWBC won the university pennant for the fastest university women’s eight, finishing second overall.

In addition to the many returners, several of the rowers will be racing in light blue for the first time with the crews including graduate students, freshers and rowers who learned to row at a Cambridge College and have since progressed through the CUWBC Development Squad. The rowers come from 16 different Colleges across the University.

In the eights, ‘CUW-A’ features Myriam Goudet from the 2016 Blue Boat along with Lucy Pike and Imogen Grant who were in the victorious 2016 Blondie crew. They are joined by Melissa Wilson who raced in the Blue Boat in 2013, 14 and 15 and won bronze at the 2015 World U23 Championships and Alice White who won gold in the GB U23 eight in 2015 and has come to Cambridge from UCLA. The crew will be coxed by Matthew Holland a fresher previously at Westminster College where he won the Schools’ Head and National Schools’ Regatta earlier this year.

‘CUW-B’ includes Ashton Brown and Thea Zabell from the 2016 Blue Boat, Rachel Elwood from 2016 Blondie crew and also include Emma Andrews who has come from Putney High School and won a gold and silver medal representing Great Britain at the 2016 Coupe de la Jeunesse. Three of the members of ‘CUW-C’ raced in the 2016 lightweight boat race, with Dorrotya Nagy also being part of the winning Blondie crew.

The crews selected are below.

You can follow the progress of the light blue crews over the weekend via @cuwbc on Twitter.