As part of a series of events to celebrate the 175th anniversary of the first Oxford Cambridge boat race in 1829, two replicas of the cutter boat, which Oxford raced in that first race, were specially built by Richmond Bridge boat builders last year.

In an extra race on Sunday evening, two crews of old Cambridge and Oxford blues raced each other in the replica boats over the full course, wearing replica 1829 kit and umpired by Christopher Davidge (the Oxford stroke of 1953), who was also wearing clothes of the time, including a large top hat.

Moving seats were developed in America in the late 1850s by J.C. Babcock of Nassau Boat Club, but the invention that revolutionised rowing as we know it didn't make it into the boat race until 1873, so the anniversary race was in fixed seat boats, each weighing 400lbs -- and that's an awful lot of boat to pull over the full four and a quarter miles without using your legs.

In the early days of sliding seat rowing, coaches were strongly advised to start beginners rowing in fixed seat boats so they could master the "swing" from the hips. These days however, although gig rowing is still a popular sport, especially in coastal areas, there isn't much crossover between both disciplines, and Sunday's crews had to learn for themselves what technique worked and what didn't, with help from coaches Mike Hart (Cambridge) and Jonny Dwan (Oxford).

Volunteers to take part in the race were canvassed from the old blue community and whittled down to the final crews through erg tests. The replica boats were finished around the end of January and both crews have been taking the training quite seriously, though, as David Gillard, a member of the Cambridge crew pointed out, with most of the crew members also rowing for their own clubs, it was sometimes difficult to fit outings around them. Cambridge managed outings two to three times a week and admit they probably took the event more seriously than they ever envisioned.

Cambridge cox Kevin Whyman explained that the boat had been difficult to control at the start, as the rudder is huge and got caught in the fast stream. Compared to modern shells, the boats simply just don't move very fast. Pete Bridge, stroke of the Oxford crew commented "it's very difficult to change speed as the boats are so heavy, and it's very hard work. I think I'd rather stick to normal rowing in future".

Starting off an hour before the main boat race, the crews were pretty much level to Harrods, where Cambridge put in a couple of big pushes, calling a ten for Merrivale, the first Cambridge president, and taking advantage of the bend, to edge ahead of Oxford. From there the light blues (rowing in pink as they did in 1829) increased their lead over the second half of the race, to win by four lengths.

In the end it looked like technique won Cambridge the race, as their stroke involved sitting up and using some sliding on the seat (use of Vaseline was admitted to), compared to Oxford who had been coached to sit right back at the finish.

However, while Cambridge's sliding may have won them the race it did however have one slight drawback:

"You don't know the damage that gets done to your backside… some of the guys have blood coming through their trousers, it's really, really sore…"

The Crews:
Cambridge	Oxford
Matt Parish	Matt Smith
Ed Richardson	Ed Bellamy
Gordon Dunfield-Prayero	Andrew Lindsay
Crispin Page	Rob Clegg
David Gillard	Hugh Corroon
Toby Wallace	Jonny Searle
Lukas Hirst	Ian Weighell
Tom Hodgson	Pete Bridge
Kevin Whyman (cox)	Neil Chugani (cox)