[CUCBC Captains] Substitutions & Draw clarifications

[Conor Burgess]

Hi all,

We’d just like to clarify a few points that have seen some confusion.

On substitutions, if a member of one of your crews has to self isolate due to being contact traced for someone who has tested positive, this does fall under the “exceptional circumstances” which would allow a rower / cox from a lower crew to double up to enable the higher crew to race. Sadly this isn’t beneficial to your lowest crews I’m afraid :( Please note that this should only be used as a last resort, and if possible subbing someone up a crew and subbing someone else in their place is preferable (for them too I’m sure, as they won’t have to race twice).

Please note that the above should not be confused with a member of one of your crews being required to self isolate because their household pool test was positive and they’re awaiting their individual PCR, or they have symptoms and are awaiting a PCR result, etc. In these cases, the entire crew will be close contacts if the crew member does test positive, so the crew should withdraw from that day’s racing and not return unless the PCR result is negative.


On the draw, please note that the Swiss System that the Captains’ voted for takes into account the number of wins each crew has accumulated, but the order of those wins is not relevant in the same way it would be for a plate competition (or plate plate, etc.). The software which produces the draw is quite complicated, but the short version is that each crew should expect to race a crew that has the same number of wins as them, but that they haven’t raced before.

In theory at least, this will result in not only an overall winner in each division (with tiebreak races in some divisions if required), but something much closer to the real ranking of all of the crews in that division than a plate / plate-plate style competition would produce (though admittedly with some ties that we won't have time to break).


Best wishes,
Conor