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Caius Boat Club will have an unexpected eighth boat on the river for May Bumps this week, after Caius MCR’s men’s eight rallied to qualify a month after taking to the water.

Lukas Seiler (LLM 2022) was the instigator. Lukas spent a year at �²ʿ��� as an undergraduate on an Erasmus Scholarship, rowing with Caius in 2013-14.

Nine years on, returning as a in preference to other prestigious offers, he felt a gap in his Cambridge experience when watching Lent Bumps.

“I hadn’t found the time to row before the beginning of this term. I watched the races at Lent Bumps and thought ‘I want to be in that’,” he says.

Conversations with other MCR Committee members followed, notably Will Brown, the sports officer, who supported the recruitment drive.

Emma Radford, the Captain of the Boats, and Simon Goodbrand, the College Boatman, were equally supportive.

Some were persuaded to return to rowing to compete in the boat, like David Posner (Molecular Biology PhD 2020) and (Chemical Engineering 2019), who had switched to coxing earlier in the academic year. Another experienced member of Caius Boat Club, (Sociology PhD 2017), became cox and an invaluable asset.

“That was all at the beginning of May and we had to do 12 outings on the water in order to qualify for the Getting-On Race and Bumps,” Lukas adds.

The MCR boat also provided an opportunity for new talent to get involved. Everyone had patience, spirit and motivation, Lukas says.

He adds: “I really love our postgrad community. I felt this is something that I wanted to be a part of. There's great vibes in this boat; they are just great people.”

The crew were quickest in last Saturday’s , meaning they start sixth in Division Five ahead of three boats on Wednesday afternoon.

“We really were proud to just have managed that in such a short time,” he says.

“Our mood is so great and we performed so well on the Getting-On Race you could really feel us coming together for that occasion.

“I’m 100 per cent sure that we're going to really come together and do our best.”

Caius Boat Club M4 (MCR): Cox: Heqing Huang, S: Ethan St Catherine, Joshua Hare, Marius Endler, Tom Neill, Benjamin Keener, Lukas Seiler, Floris Blok, B: David Posner. Coach: Simon Goodbrand. Further squad members: Wiktor Budek, Sam Dernie, Yizhou Wan.

Caius Boat Club will have four men’s and four women’s crews in competition from Wednesday to Saturday (June 14 to 17). To follow the Bumps, please visit .

Photo credit: Olivia Conway