CAMBRIDGE, England—Every summer, students here line up in dozens of boats, wait for a cannon to fire, then pelt around the narrow bends of the River Cam trying to smash the crew in front.
After four days of pileups, tears and the occasional ejection, the Cambridge college at the front has the glory of being named “head of the river.”
The competition—known as the May Bumps, despite occurring in June—is a wet and wild demolition derby in the shadows of England’s most storied halls of learning. And until this year, it was one of the oldest of old boys sports.
Then came Camille VanderMeer.
The elite American rower arrived at 742-year-old Peterhouse college last fall having won the women’s coxless four at the 2025 World Championships.
VanderMeer had applied to Cambridge to study for her M.B.A. and hoped to row with the women’s varsity team against Oxford in a contest simply known as the Boat Race, which takes place in London each spring.
Her timing was fortuitous: The men’s Bumps race had just undergone a rebranding to the “open division.” The change, designed to be more inclusive for trans rowers, meant biological women could participate, too.
“One of the guys came up to me and said ‘You know, with the new rules, you could be in the men’s boat, and it would be really cool…. We have a really good chance to win the headship,’” VanderMeer said.
Many rowers who race for Cambridge these days don’t represent their colleges come summer. But after losing to Oxford in April, VanderMeer was eager to try a competition that’s been a staple of student life since the 1820s.
The Bumps is closer to cheese-rolling than rowing, the Peterhouse boatman explained in a pep talk to the squad.
The University of Cambridge consists of more than 30 colleges, which field crews of varying abilities to chase each other upstream. Bump the boat in front, and you swap places the next day. (Rubber bow balls soften the blow.) The leaderboard after four days gives next year’s starting positions.
Women didn’t compete in the Bumps until 1962, and their appearance wasn’t universally welcome. “I personally do not approve of women rowing,” the captain of Selwyn College wrote, calling it a “ghastly sight.” By the 1970s, the university had added a separate women’s Bumps division.
This year, the new open division changed things again.
Senior Peterhouse boat club members decided to choose their crew based on scores on a stationary rowing machine, which tends to favor brawn over skill. VanderMeer, who learned on a machine in her parents’ basement in Elmira, N.Y., made the cut.
“I was trying to prove…that women are capable of competing with men even in sports that are very strength-based,” she said.
Thanks to her technical prowess, VanderMeer took the stroke seat, the rower in the stern who sets the rhythm.
On the day of the race, the coach pushed the crew’s boat out with a pole 30 seconds before the gun. (The traditional cannon should return next year, if someone sorts out the license.) Law-student-turned-coxswain Maisie Dixon held a chain attached to the bank, a system devised to space out crews.
One-and-a-half boat lengths in front, Peterhouse’s quarry also moved into the stream. St John’s, the wealthy college Cambridge students love to hate and last year’s victors, had come to regard headships as its birthright. Adding spice, it had tried—and failed—to block Peterhouse from fielding elite recruits, for which the college has become an unlikely magnet.
The gun fired, Dixon dropped the chain and Peterhouse surged forward to VanderMeer’s beat, hunting down St John’s halfway through the 1.4-mile course.
Peterhouse was tops. All the crew had to do now was complete the course for the rest of the week without being bumped back.
Gordon Hewlett, 90, part of the last victorious Peterhouse crew in 1956, ate strawberries and cream and drank Champagne as he watched VanderMeer cruise to victory.
“A woman stroking our first VIII was beyond our comprehension,” he said, recalling that on race day there used to be a sign on the towpath saying “No ladies beyond this point.”
Back on land, the crew donned blazers and burned an old wooden scull in Peterhouse’s garden. (Fire-safety officers initially resisted the customary celebration.)
The only thing left was to receive the Bumps prize—a ceremonial plate stored in a large box—from last year’s winners. Over a port-fueled dinner in Peterhouse’s 13th-century hall, word got around that St John’s hadn’t delivered it. A crew member learned from a friend that the only person with access to the St John’s safe was at the college’s own rowing dinner, and not to be disturbed.
Peterhouse wasn’t buying it. “Oh, ‘we’ve lost this giant silver plate in this huge special box. It’s just gone missing,’” said VanderMeer.
An alumnus stomped down the road in his blazer to St John’s to retrieve the plate. Cheers erupted on his return. A few days later, VanderMeer flew back to the U.S. for the weekslong trials for the American squad for this year’s World Championships.
Write to Joe Wallace at joe.wallace@wsj.com