Coxing, CUBC, and the Closing Chapter: a chat with Ollie Boyne

by Mark Taylor

All good things must come to an end, and Ollie Boyne is eager to savour everything that being a part of the University of Cambridge has to offer for one final time.

After four years studying a PhD in computer vision, Boyne is now in the writing up phase of his research, with a final deadline for submission in the coming months.

He is supervised by Professor Roberto Cipolla and his area of work is in accurate foot reconstruction from mobile phone multiview images, focusing on how synthetic data can help solve the problem.

“The reason why I found my way there is because I originally did my undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering,” Boyne explains. “I was doing my master’s project on dogs, that transformed into a computer vision-based project, and I found my way into this research group. Computer vision is essentially just teaching computers to see. The big areas that people would know about include things like self-driving cars and Snapchat filters, but there are all sorts of different applications for when you want a computer to look at an image and get some information out of it.”

It was during his undergraduate degree that Boyne first got introduced to rowing at Downing College, and the two have ended up dovetailing perfectly.

Having gained experience with Downing, the 26-year-old made the decision to trial for CUBC. He has gone onto cox reserve crew Goldie on three occasions, most recently in 2023 when Cambridge won by a length as part of a clean sweep of all the Boat Races, the openweight, lightweight and veteran races. It was also the year in which Boyne was the president of the men’s openweight squad.

After deciding to focus on his studies last year, he is back for “one more run down the track”.

“Last year was very much the year with the presidency, and not making the boat was quite intense” says Boyne. “I got to the end of it, and while I love rowing, I definitely needed some time away. Over the summer, I spoke to the coaches, Rob (Baker) and Bill (Lucas), and it worked out well with the timings of my PhD that I did have another year in me, if I wanted.”

“I talked with them, thought about it, and decided to give it one more shot.”

“Having done it a few times, you pick up the ways to make it work. It is all about understanding that both come in waves. With the pressures of rowing, especially as a cox, there are times in the year when it is not very demanding. Let’s say we’re in smaller boats for a while or something like that, then there are times when it is very demanding, like when we’re coming up to the races.”

“It’s the same with academic work. There are times where it is a bit more exploratory, you do things in your own time, or you’ve got a deadline next week. It is very much being aware of when those are coming, and balancing your mental workload around that.”

Boyne has seen plenty of changes down the years, including the amalgamation of the men’s, women’s and lightweight clubs under the one umbrella. He has also witnessed the revolving door of the squad, such is the nature of studies, courses, CUBC and the trialling process. It means that each year is very different, and needs to be approached with a different attitude. Yet although events will unfold differently, the overall ethos always remains the same.”

“The Club has a huge place in my heart,” says Boyne. “Having been here for five years now, I’ve known a great number of people. Some have stayed the whole time, people like Luca (Ferraro) and Matt (Edge), and some have only been here a year. It is really special to have this connection across all these people, and also people way beforehand. Meeting others at dinners that were rowing in crews 50, 60, 70 years ago… it is just a very special, cool thing.”

“The Club is the people, and that’s what I remember from it – the people and the connections you make.”

“Looking at it from an outside perspective where it’s just a 17min race once a year, it’s hard to gain the understanding that it is day in, day out training with a group of people every year for however many years you do it.

“That’s what makes it such a big part of our lives.”

On that point, and with it being Boyne’s last year, he adds: “The cherry on top this year is that I’m finding myself enjoying all the little things a little bit more than usual. I know what’s coming, and how to appreciate it.”