OUTGOING CHAIRMAN’S VIEW

The past few weeks have provided many highlights for our club. Whilst a win has eluded us, our athletes have produced some excellent performances with our women losing narrowly in the final at Henley Women’s Regatta, our coxed four racing in the final of the Britannia Cup and the quad racing in the semi-final of the Prince of Wales at Henley. A kinder draw would have seen more LRC crews racing into the weekend and the quality of our crews was plain for all to see. It is pleasing to see the progress that the Club is making and I am grateful to all of our coaches, Stu, Killian and all of the volunteers who have prepared the crews to race and to the athletes who have represented the Club with distinction.

During the Regatta we were also able to enjoy the sight of a crew of venerable lightweight world champions rowing over the Henley course during the lunch interval on the Saturday to celebrate their win in Hazewinkel in 1980. It was a wonderful way to remember what LRC has achieved in the past and a spur to future success.

The Annual General Meeting was held in the Clubhouse and online on Wednesday 6th July. Alongside the formal business of the meeting, I hope that we were able to give members a feel for the improvement and control of our finances as well as the progress and development of our club. Having completed my three-year term as chairman, I have handed over the chairman’s email account to Bill Baker. I would like to record my thanks to everyone who has given up their time and expertise to help to move our club forward; it has been an interesting, challenging and rewarding experience.

Simon Harris
Chairman, London Rowing Club

INCOMING CHAIRMAN’S VIEW

Simon has summed up a very positive year for the Club. We have achieved much on the water and in recovering from the challenges of Covid. I feel honoured and thankful to be elected chairman for the forthcoming period which I'm sure will be exciting and productive one on many fronts.

Our main women's and men's squad has built a great foundation for further success and our other rowing groups are well attended and supported.

We have plans to develop our clubhouse in Eddie's capable hands and look forward to the 15th September resis and former members reunion with the aim of raising funding for a new resi kitchen. I'd ask all current resis to attend and meet their former counterparts.

Our events business is crucial to the Club's finances and bookings are looking very healthy under Kate and Annabel's management. We will keep a weather eye on the longer term bookings for next year and would encourage members to consider the Club for work and private functions.

Finally, we continue to develop our overall offering to build on what is a record membership.

I wish everyone a well-earned summer break and look forward to working with you.

Bill Baker
Chairman, London Rowing Club

CAPTAIN’S REPORT

So there we have it. The 2021/22 season has come to its conclusion. Already whispers can be overheard on the balcony of plans for the Scullers Head and summer beach weights. And whilst I have no doubt that 2022/23 with be an incredible year for LRC, I’d like to take this opportunity to reflect on some of the highlight moments of this season’s Henley campaign.

London Rowing Club had its largest ever entry to Henley Women’s Regatta, with 26 athletes representing our club. What’s more we fielded our first ever club 8+ at the regatta. The crew went to reach the semi-finals, racing in our brand new Empacher 8+ (the first we’ve ever bought specifically for squad women), aptly named Jessica Eddie. Following their first round race against Tyne from the umpire’s launch will be forever one memory of my Captaincy which will draw a smile.

Elsewhere at HWR, our top crew, the 4- containing our new Captain, Lizzie Cottrell, raced well against crews from Oxford, York and Worcester to progress to the final where they would race local rivals Vesta for The Lester Trophy. The final was an incredible race to watch, with both crews bow ball to bow ball coming into the final few hundred metres. Ultimately though it was to be Vesta’s day, with their surge to the line giving them the win by just 0.5 seconds. This is a second year in a row LRC has made the final of The Lester Trophy, and although the result was agonisingly close this year, to have gone from 1 ½ lengths off in 2021, to just 1 foot in 2022 should give an immense sense of progression, and importantly drive for the season ahead.

London showed both strength and depth at this year’s Henley Women’s Regatta and took a rightful seat at the top table of domestic women’s club rowing. To be saying that now, when as recently as 2019 London’s only representation at HWR was in a composite crew, is nothing short of incredible. The meteoric rise of this group of women has been one of the driving forces of our club in recent years. I’m certain that with Lizzie taking over as London’s second ever female captain, the story has many more chapters to come.

Just five days after Henley Women’s we were into Royal, with Friday’s incredibly tough qualifiers. LRC had pre-qualified four crews and so the gauntlet was laid for our Wargrave, Thames ‘B’, Wyfold ‘B’ and Brit ‘B’ crews. Three of four made it through, with just our Thames B crew missing out. The stewards having pre-qualified a significant number of crews proven to be slower at Met and Marlow, meant that a lot of quality crews were fighting for just three available spaces.

So with seven crews racing the regatta, the next step was Saturday’s draw. The rowing gods did not smile on LRC that afternoon, with four of our crews drawing pre-qualified and/or selected overseas crews and the other three facing top class domestic crews. The saving grace was selection for both our Prince of Wales and Britannia ‘A’ crews.

On their opening races, our Wargrave crew lost out to the University of Queensland (racing as Barbarians RC), a crew which by rights should have been in the Island Challenge Cup for students. Our Thames crew similarly came up against a very powerful crew from Sydney RC who out gunned LRC. Our Wyfold ‘B’ crew, though not racing any Australians, did face a tough challenge from a top Molesey crew containing a previous HRR winner. The boys of our Wyfold ‘A’ crew, despite having proven themselves to be one of the fastest fours domestically at Marlow regatta, fell fowl of the perils of selection and were drawn against another top domestic crew from Upper Thames. The crews had been within half a length of one another in the A final at Marlow Regatta (in LRC’s favour), and by rights a London v Upper Thames HRR race should have been worthy of a semi-final match up. Our boys put on a gutsy performance of which they should be extremely proud but were unfortunately pipped by Upper Thames on the day, who would go on to reach the semi-final.

Both our Brit ‘A’ and ‘B’ crews won their opening races against Sydney and Hannover respectively, setting up a London ‘A’ v ‘B’ quarter final aka “The Brit Off”. And the Prince of Wales quad comfortably dispatched a composite crew of students from Nottingham and Loughborough universities.

In the quarter finals London ‘A’ took a comfortable victory over the ‘B’ crew (finally allowing the coaches heads to drop to resting pace) and the Prince of Wales crew similarly defeated Nottingham University.

Onto the semi-finals and the tension really began to build. The Britannia crew faced Hinksey Sculling School, the same club who knocked LRC out of the Britannia in the semi-finals last year. History was not to repeat itself and LRC won a great race, having been pushed all the way along the course and into LRC’s first HRR final since 2011. In the Prince of Wales, our boys faced Leander. The strong headwind and home water advantage gave the Leander crew the advantage over LRC’s (relative) lightweight crew and so they took the win. Leander went on to beat Reading University in the final.

And so, onto Sunday. The first race of the day, London Rowing Club v Thames Rowing Club in the final of the Britannia Challenge Cup. A more exciting stage could not be set. Crowds gathered outside Bay C to clap the crew out and what a moment that was. The noise was incredible and it’s a moment I’m certain no one in that crew will ever forget. In the race itself Thames got out to a two-length lead by Remenham Club. Whilst that may have seemed like it was all over, anyone who saw the LRC crew’s epic sprint finish at Met would have told you there was more to come from this race. Over the speakers in the boat tents, the announcement came… “entering the enclosures, London have increased their rate of striking to 42”. The long-range sprint was on. Thames could not respond. Their rate not able to go above 35, they were simply hanging on and praying for the finish line, all the while watching London eating away at their lead. By the time the finish did come, Thames lead had been reduced to just 2/3 of a length. Though the result was not to be for London, the race our crew put down was simply breath-taking. All five of them should be so, so proud of themselves, as indeed I, and everyone at LRC is of them.

And so there we have it. A Henley campaign ending with two crews racing finals (the combined losing margin of which was less than one length) and another two in semi-finals. And across the squad results that they can all be proud of. This caps off a season in which LRC won six pennants at the Scullers Head, three at the Fours Head and one at Women’s Head. All followed up with three wins at the Met Regatta. There is no questioning the rocket fuelled trajectory of our club back to its rightful position at the top end of club rowing.

Keep banging the drum,

James Sexton-Barrow
Captain 2021 - 22

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

See more detail for these events, visit our Calendar of Events…

IRREGULARS' REPORT

The Irregulars continues to attract new members with approximately 10 so far this year – newest arrivals being Mike Newsom Davis and Zena Howard. Welcome to you both. One of the new members, Chris Callaghan, has already shown a keen interest in becoming a bow steerer and has already started the process and shown great aptitude. Well done and thanks Chris.

Outings continue with three to four quads on the Sunday and one to two on the Wednesday being the norm. Although these attendance numbers are down on a couple of years ago the group overall has increased in number with other members taking their outings at different times – a COVID related outcome probably.

Thanks must go to Diana Bartley, Fiona Young and Nigel Foster for attending and successfully passing the Emergency First Aid at Work course held at the club on 21st June. There were 8 others from different parts of the Club and I think some friendships and some club “camaraderie” resulted.

A Henley Row Over Day was held on Thursday 23rd June with 12 of our number participating – this is a great day shared with some friends at Twickenham Rowing Club – we borrow boats from UTRC and row over the course followed by a buffet lunch at the Remenham Club. A very atmospheric day when you can “dream and imagine” rowing in the Royal Regatta – some of our number might remember!

Finally of course, HRR itself was enjoyed by many of our number and especially so with the club continuing its upward trajectory – well done to the coaches and crews for making it so memorable.

Tubby Bryant, our double skiff, was busy during the week – Wednesday saw Jessica Salter, Kate Macdonald and Annabel Lawrence taking to the waves and racing was enjoyed from the boom.

Friday saw the usual Irregular outings. Tubby, at 130 years old, continues to give huge enjoyment to all members of the club during the HRR week.

*Tubby setting out from Sea cadets to watch the racing.*

*Tubby on the boom watching the racing late in the day.*

Eddie Markes

HENLEY STEWARDS

These are the Stewards who are also members of the Club. From left to right: Gavin Stewart, David Wootton, Ian Reid, Peter Cusack, Mike Baldwin, Sophie Hosking, Ben Helm, Mike Williams, Jess Eddie, Lynton Richmond. (Photography courtesy of Beatrice Richmond)

Mike Baldwin

VOLUNTEERS REQUIRED

The Club needs help on its sub committees so if you are interested in getting involved with running LRC please do get in touch with one of the club officers. We have vacancy as chair of the Membership Sub Committee and other roles.

Bill Baker
Chairman, London Rowing Club

CALL OUT TO EX-RESIS & FORMER MEMBERS

On 15th September we are holding a reunion at the Club of former resis and members. The aim is to seek donations towards the renovation of the resi kitchen and to encourage lapsed members to re-join.

If you know former resis and members please send their name and email address to Jessica Salter at membership@londonrc.org.uk.

Current resis and members who lived at the club, please note the date and attend as we’d like you to meet your former counterparts and exchange stories of living at LRC.

The club will match any donations and we hope to raise funds to meet this vital next stage of the club development.

Bill Baker
Chairman, London Rowing Club

NEW MEMBERS

We would like to welcome the following new members to the Club:

George Cowley
Joshua Culleton
Jeff Gugelmann
Kevin Gugelmann
Zena Howard
Kate Jayne-Coupe
Michael Richmond
Zoe Tipler

We hope you will enjoy being part of the London Rowing Club community and will help us build an ever happier and more successful club.

We are always pleased to have more members so, if you know of anyone who think might like to join the Club, please either let us know or encourage them to get in touch with us themselves.

There is information on becoming a member on our website: https://www.londonrc.org.uk/membership-enquiries or you can contact the Club’s Membership Secretary, Jessica Salter, whose email address is membership@londonrc.org.uk

Andrew Boyle
Honorary Secretary, London Rowing Club

THE BERLIN IV AND BEWL BRIDGE ROWING CLUB

If you are starting a new Rowing Club, to state the obvious you need a boat! So, Chris Willis, and Tony Prowse, who were members of London Rowing Club, showed interest in a coxless IV languishing in the corner of the LRC boat house and thought with some tender loving care that might just do to row on Bewl Water for Bewl Bridge Rowing Club which they had formed. With some fierce negotiations they secured a deal to buy it for £50!

After some refurbishment it was rendered fit to float and so its first outing at Bewl was on 16th July 1977 alongside another IV loaned by Tonbridge School. The Berlin IV served us well for a few years although I lost count of the times, I carried out repairs with fibreglass resin to the inside of the stern section which was prone to splitting. Finally on a sunny Saturday afternoon in July 1985 it split again and took on so much water we were sinking! We managed to row it back to shallow water close to the dam by which time the water was level with the top of the sax boards. We stepped out and rolled it over in the water so we could lift it out upside down. That was its last outing as we concluded further repairs were not viable and it was returned to the boat shed.

*Chris Willis at Bow & John Northridge at 2.*

You may be wondering why it was called the Berlin IV? In 1936 The 3rd Reich, of course led by Hitler was triumphantly hosting the Olympic Games in Berlin. Within the British Rowing Squad were four rowing in the Coxless IVs events. For the actual races at the Olympic Games Sims & Sons, boat builders in Putney, were commissioned to build a fine boat for which light weight was more important than robustness for long life, but sufficiently capable of withstanding the Olympic races. The crew won a Silver Medal coming second to the German crew. The boat returned to LRC after the Olympics and was used as just another boat in its fleet. Despite its lightweight construction it existed long enough for Chris and Tony to think it was worth acquiring for BBRC. In fact, it was fit for active use for another 8 years and 49 in total.

In 1986 Kenneth Payne, our President at the time, who had rowed in the GB VIII in the 1932 Olympic Games at Los Angeles, had been having a conversation with Peter Coni, another well-known rowing figure at the time and President of LRC. Following that conversation Kenneth asked if we would like to sell the Berlin IV. Being of no practical use to us by then this was an appealing proposition especially as the figure being offered was £200! LRC had by then realised the boat was a significant part of its heritage.

After its return it was hung from the ceiling in the Long Room of LRC complete with a plaque denoting its Olympic history and that it was in active use at London Rowing Club and Bewl Bridge Rowing Club until 1986.

Having been a member of LRC myself during the 1980s when I could row there on Wednesday evenings, I remember it being displayed, so I am delighted to find it still has pride of place at LRC ever since, as the photographs show.

Chris Wynne
A former Captain & Secretary of BBRC
April 2022

CASAMAJOR CLUB DRAW

The recent draw winners were:

£75:

Jon Andrew
Jamie Halliday
Ciaran Hayes
Stuart Heap
Ben Philips
John Brocklebank

£30:

Stephen Wright
Iain Laurenson
Chris von Patzelt
John Hobson

We now have 155 members of the Casamajor Club. This represents about eighteen percent of LRC’s total membership. Becoming a member of Casamajor Club will help provide much needed funds for LRC but also has the added attraction that you may be lucky with a drawer.

If you would like to become a member, please click on this link: https://pay.gocardless.com/AL0002R9Y4C4S8

Only £5 per month can win you £75 in quarterly draws – all profits to the boat maintenance fund.

John Auber

SUPPER AT SEA

We are delighted to welcome back Dinner Ladies for their Supper at Sea experience on Wednesday 31st August and Thursday 1st September.

More than half the tickets for these suppers have already been sold so if you are interested in taking part please click on this link:

https://dinnerladiesltd.com/supper-clubs

Many thanks,

Kate MacDonald
LRC, Business Development Manager (Events)

REPORTING SAFETY INCIDENTS

All members are reminded that if you are involved in or witness a water safety incident, you are required to report it using the following email address – safety@londonrc.org.uk
The Club will file any necessary reports on your behalf with British Rowing and the PLA. Members should not submit reports directly to either body.

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

My thanks to everyone who has contributed to this edition of the London Roar. If you have an idea for an article or would be interested in submitting a piece for inclusion in a future edition, please email me on miles.preston@londonrc.org.uk

Please do not submit an article without first liaising with me.

Miles Preston
Editor of The London Roar