Lent Bumps

1st & 3rd Trinity 1st Women about to overbump Girton in the women's 1st division on day 3 of the 2005 Lent Bumps.

The Lent Bumps (also Lent Races, Lents) are a set of rowing races held annually on the River Cam in Cambridge. They began in 1887, after separating from the May Bumps, which are bumping races held in mid-June. Prior to the separation there had been a single set of annual bumps dating from its inception in 1827.^[1] The races are open to all college boat clubs from the University of Cambridge, the University Medical and Veterinary Schools and Anglia Ruskin Boat Club. The Lent Bumps take place over five days (Tuesday to Saturday) at the end of February /start of March and are run as bumps races.

The most recent in the series was the Lent Bumps 2018, held from 27 February to 3 March 2018. On Wednesday 28 February three of the divisions were cancelled because of snow and ice on the towpath, then all racing was cancelled on Thursday 1 March, and the two lower divisions on Friday 2 March.

Structure

The races are run in divisions, each containing 17 crews. The number of crews in each bottom division varies yearly depending on new entrants.^[2] Each crew consists of eight rowers and one coxswain. Unlike the May Bumps, rowers trialling for places in university crews are not allowed to take part in the Lents. A total of 121 crews took part in 2012, totalling around 1100 participants. There are currently four divisions for men's crews (referred to as M1, M2 ... M4) and three divisions for women's crews (similarly W1–W3). The divisions represent an overall race order, with Division 1 at the top. The ultimate aim is to try to finish Head of the River (also said as gaining the 'Headship'), i.e. first position in Division 1.

At the start, signalled by a cannon, each crew is separated by a distance of about 1½ boat lengths (approximately 30 m or 90 ft). Once the race has begun, 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 nor is bumped by the crew behind before crossing the finishing post is said to have rowed over. Any 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. Crews finishing at the top of a division, the sandwich boat, row at the bottom of the next division to try to move up a division. 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 Lent Bumps is then used as the starting order of the following year's races.

The leading men's and women's crews of the Lent Bumps go on to race the leading Oxford Torpids men's and women's crews at the Henley Boat Races around Easter.^[3]

Crews finishing Head of the River

Table of Winning Boats (1887-2018)

Nineteen boats have been head of the river.

Blade	Boat	Head of the River : Men	Head of the River : Women	Head of the River : Total	Winning Years : Men	Winning Years : Women
	Jesus	39	6	45	1905–12, 1914, 1922–24, 1926–27, 1929, 1932, 1934–38, 1940–41, 1944–47, 1952–53, 1955, 1957, 1959–64, 1970, 1972, 1974	1985–87, 2016–18
	Trinity (Combined)	25	4	29	1892–96, 1898–1902, 1904, 1913, 1919*, 1921, 1925, 1951, 1958, 1967, 1971, 1998, 2000, 2007–10	2007–08, 2010, 2014
	Lady Margaret	20	2	22	1889, 1897, 1903, 1920, 1943, 1949–50, 1954, 1965–66, 1975–81, 1990, 2017–18	1992–93
	1st Trinity	15	n/a	15	1892–96, 1898–1902, 1904, 1913, 1919*, 1921, 1925	n/a
	Downing	10	5	15	1984–88, 1994–97, 2014	2004–05, 2011–13
	1st & 3rd Trinity	10	4	14	1951, 1958, 1967, 1971, 1998, 2000, 2007–10	2007–08, 2010, 2014
	Emmanuel	1	11	12	1930	1988–91, 1994–95, 1997–98, 2000, 2002, 2009
	Caius	11	1	12	1999, 2002–06, 2011–13, 2015–16	2003
	Trinity Hall	7	2	9	1890, 1948, 1982–83, 1991–93	1996, 1999
	Pembroke	4	-	4	1931, 1933, 1942, 1989	-
	Clare	2	1	3	1939, 1973	2006
	New Hall	n/a	3	3	n/a	1976, 1978, 1980
	Newnham	n/a	3	3	n/a	1977, 1982–83
	Corpus Christi	2	-	2	1887, 1891	-
	Girton	-	2	2	-	1979, 1981
	Churchill	-	1	1	-	1984
	Fitzwilliam	1	-	1	1969	-
	Peterhouse	1	-	1	1956	-
	Queens’	1	-	1	1968	-
	Christ’s	-	1	1	-	2015

* The head of the river in 1919 was, unusually, 1st Trinity’s second boat. It was the first race after World War I and 1st eights did not race. The start order for the 1920 races was the finish order for the 1914 races.^[1]

Prior to 1946 1st & 3rd Trinity were two separate rowing clubs: 1st Trinity and 3rd Trinity, hence both separate and combined titles.^[4]

CCAT, Clare Hall, Darwin, Homerton, Hughes Hall, King's, Lucy Cavendish, Magdalene, Robinson, St. Catharine's, Selwyn, Sidney Sussex, St Edmund's, Wolfson, Addenbrooke's and the Veterinary School are the regular entrants never to have finished Head of the River in either the men's or women's events.

See also

• Links to individual Lent Bumps results
• May Bumps, the equivalent event in the summer
• Torpids, a similar event in Oxford

References

• Durack, John; Gilbert, George; Marks, John (2000). The bumps : an account of the Cambridge University bumping races, 1827-1999. Cambridge: G. Gilbert. ISBN 9780953847501.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lent Bumps.

• CUCBC — the organisation that runs the bumps
• Cambridge bumps charts — archive of results 1992-2015