This Day, That Year – March 15

This day in history we feature the Women’s Boat Race. The first Boat Race between the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge takes place on this day in 1927.

Trivia – Women’s Boat Race

The Women’s Boat Race is an annual rowing race between Cambridge University Women’s Boat Club and Oxford University Women’s Boat Club. First rowed in 1927, the race has taken place annually since 1964. Since the 2015 race it has been rowed on the same day and course as the men’s Boat Race on the River Thames in London, taking place around Easter, and since 2018 the name “The Boat Race” has been applied to the combined event.

Related read – Participate in the Waterfront Market Dragon Boat Race on February 11 & 12, 2023

The race is rowed in eights and the cox can be of any gender. The course covers a 4.2 miles (6.8 km) stretch of the Thames in West London, from Putney to Mortlake. Members of both crews are traditionally known as blues and each boat as a “Blue Boat”, with Cambridge in light blue and Oxford dark blue. As of 2021 Cambridge have won the race 45 times and Oxford 30 times. Cambridge has led Oxford in cumulative wins since 1966. The women’s race has received television coverage and grown in popularity since 2015, attracting a television audience of 4.8 million viewers that year. The 2019 race was won by Cambridge by five lengths. The 2017 race took place on Sunday 2 April at 16:35 British Summer Time, an hour before the men’s race. Cambridge won for the first time in five years after Oxford caught a crab at the start. They set a record on the new course, beating the time first set on this course in 2015 by over a minute. The time was faster, in different conditions, than the Cambridge men’s Blue Boat in 2016 and the Oxford men’s in 2014. Beginning with the 2018 race, the combined event was branded simply as “The Boat Race”, consisting of “The Women’s Boat Race” and “The Men’s Boat Race”. The 2019 race was Cambridge’s third consecutive victory and the fourth consecutive victory for their reserve boat, Blondie. The race has been won 45 times by Cambridge and 30 times by Oxford, with Cambridge leading Oxford in cumulative wins since 1966. The reserves race has been won 28 times by Cambridge and 20 times by Oxford, with Cambridge leading in cumulative wins since the inception of the race.

Source – Wikipedia