CHAIRMAN’S VIEW
We’ve had an active and successful start to 2023 with the hard work over the winter paying off with excellent results at The Quintin Head. In the men’s, LRC 1 just one second off the winners Thames in Open Champ Eights with 8th and 36th places secured in the Open Seniors. In the women’s LRC, not quite at full strength were very close to Vesta in Championship Eights. This all bodes well for the coming season and with eight eights entered we have good strength in depth.
On Thursday we had a capacity turn out of around 100 for the annual dinner, a great success and thanks go to Heather, Annabel and all who put such an enjoyable event together. It was good to see the honours boards updated with Rui Xu’s name shown as 2022 Sculler’s Head champion. I counted seven LRC winners in total so it’s a rarefied club within the club. It was fitting to have the Blackstaffe Trophy on display together with the Pairs Head Cup won by Rui and Matt Curtis last year and the silver gilt Herbert Playford Cup. Playford was a founding member of the club, winner of The Wingfield Sculls, Diamond Challenge Sculls and Grand Challenge Cup. He was also instrumental in establishing The Metropolitan Regatta.
Many will know long-standing LRC member Christopher Dodd who has just been awarded the British Rowing Medal of Honour for 40 years contribution as a rowing journalist and historian. Chris is the author of many books including the club’s history of the first 150 years, Water Boiling Aft. He was also instrumental in forming The River and Rowing Museum at Henley. You can see the award presentation on You Tube via this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTGjCkL23fs
We have scheduled Monday 27th February for AGM of London Rowing Club Ltd to present the accounts to year end 31 July 2022. This will be held in person with Zoom access as well.
Bill Baker
Chairman, London Rowing Club
CAPTAIN’S REPORT
You know it has been a cold start to the year when you find a new appreciation for polar explorers. The Putney hard turned into a ski jump and the boat bays turned into an ice rink. Eddie Markes had us prepared with our new gritting station, combating the big freeze.
Despite the challenging minus zero conditions, we have managed to stay well and warm and have put some watts down with a good chunk of training. This was evident in the Quintin Head results with the men’s open champ and senior boats missing out on the top spot pennants by 1 second and the women’s champ boat coming 4th.
The gaps from Remenham Head are closing and we are getting ready to fight to regain the Boustead and Rayner Cups on 11th February. Please come down to support our crews.
Starting the year as we mean to go on, we continue to work hard to make sure we are on the pennant winning side of the narrow margins this head season.
Bang the drum!
Elizabeth Cottrell
Captain, London Rowing Club
DATES FOR YOUR DIARY
11 February: Boustead and Rayner Cups
11 February: Henley Fours Head
25 February: Reading University Head
26 February: Hammersmith Head
27 February: AGM London Rowing Club Ltd
04 March: Women’s Eights Head
08 March: Irregulars Dinner
11 March: Kingston Head
17 March: Schools Head
18 March: Head of the River
19 March: Vesta Masters Head
20 March: Lightweight Boat Races
25 March: Men’s and Women’s Veteran Boat Races
26 March: University Boat Races
22 April: Hammersmith Amateur Regatta
29 April: Chiswick Regatta
30 April: Wallingford Regatta (Dorney)
01 May: Marlow Spring Regatta
13 May: Putney Town Regatta
See more detail for these events, visit our Calendar of Events…
IAIN LAURENSON
A lot of members will be attending a church service this Saturday for our dear late commodore Iain Laurenson.
We wish John Pearson best of health following a hospital procedure – he is making in his own words steady progress every day.
On the rowing front, we are hoping we may have a mixed quad racing in the Vesta Vets (now Masters) Head on 19th March.
Our two recent outings on Sundays have included a sweep four – a fairly rare occurrence but one that has been greeted with a lot of enthusiasm and renewed keenness by those that took part.
The 8th of March has been booked with the events team for the next Irregulars Dinner so please put that date in your diary. It will be held in the newly decorated Long Room!
Eddie Markes
VOGALONGA 2023
The arrangements for this year’s Vogalonga on 28th May are progressing well.
While I feel sure that most members know what the Vogalonga is, in case you don’t, you might like to click on the link to the event’s website and a report which appeared in last June’s TLR.
https://www.londonrc.org.uk/the-london-roar/2022/06/11/london-roar-june-2022
We are planning to take four coxed quads to this ‘bucket list’ event which means we have space for a maximum of twenty participants. To date, sixteen are on the list so we still have space for four more.
Participants are welcome to bring family and friends as supporters.
Most people who take part arrive on the Friday afternoon, do the row on the Sunday and then come home on the Monday but you may want to spend a little more time in this most beautiful of cities.
If you are interested in taking part, please will you email me.
Applications are taken on a strictly first come, first served basis so please get in touch as soon as you can if you want to be a part of this fantastic and memorable event.
Andrew Boyle
THE RESIS'S IMPROVEMENTS
The Resis are getting a new kitchen that’s what – at long last – a kitchen/diner where they they can actually sit down together and plan training sessions whilst eating pasta!
This has been formed by joining up the 3rd floor kitchen with the adjacent laundry room and creating a roughly 5metre square space.
They have waited a long time for this and have been patiently putting up with the inevitable dust, noise and disruption since late November. A temporary kitchen was fitted out for them in their sitting room and a new laundry room created out of a small kitchen on the 2nd floor and then they were sorted. This then enabled the builders to start in earnest on the new space in the New Year.
Our builders are Builtain (who did the gym for us) and they are making good progress and hopefully the new kitchen will be ready for use in about 4/5 weeks.
The Resis, as they are affectionately known, are an important and integral part of the Club 1. being custodians and guardians of our wonderful building and 2. very much a core and active part of our competitive squad. Very worth looking after you might say!
Pictures of the completed kitchen will be forthcoming in due course.
Eddie Markes
THE 4- MUSKETEERS TO RUN PARIS MARATHON TO RAISE MONEY FOR CHISWICK RNLI
On 2nd April, four LRC members – James Sexton-Barrow, Rob Williams, Nick Musson and Hugh Falconer – will be taking to the streets of Paris, to run the 42.2km (that’s the equivalent of rowing from the Thames Barrier to Richmond Lock) course that is, The Paris Marathon.
And why? Well, they’re doing this to raise funds for the Chiswick RNLI station. Though we all row past the Chiswick lifeboat station regularly, it may surprise you to learn that it is in fact the second busiest lifeboat station in the country. The team, many of whom are volunteers, operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and respond to around 200 call outs annually, many of which are to attend to us rowers.
Having spent a collective 28 years rowing on the Tideway, James, Rob, Nick and Hugh know all too well how important the Chiswick Lifeboat station is to our rowing community, so wanted to give something back to them.
If you’re able to support the boys in their efforts to raise much valued funds for the Chiswick Lifeboat, you can donate via their Just Giving page, here: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/paris23rnlichiswick?utm_term=r4vqGK2Z2
Thank you,
James Sexton-Barrow, Rob Williams, Nick Musson & Hugh Falconer
NEW MEMBERS
We would like to welcome the following new members to the Club:
Anya Barker
Callum Hunter
Anne Lury
Charles Powell
Robert Ranson
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
CHRIS DODD - BR MEDAL OF HONOUR
We are very pleased to inform members that Club member Chris Dodd, has been awarded British Rowing’s Medal of Honour, for Outstanding Service. Chris has been a member of the Club since 1981. The Medal was introduced in 1987, and is British Rowing’s highest award. The announcement was made on 26th January.
Chris is best known to members as author of the Club’s history, Water Boiling Aft. It was published to mark the Club’s 150th anniversary in 2006, and received to critical acclaim. It remains essential reading to every new member.
Outside LRC, Chris has had a distinguished career as a rowing journalist and historian, having written about rowing in newspapers, magazines and books for over 50 years. Having entered the sport as a schoolboy cox in Bristol, he stopped rowing whilst at university in Nottingham to edit the student newspaper. This led to a career on The Guardian in 1965; he started writing about rowing in 1970, and he became the newspaper’s rowing correspondent in 1994. He moved in 2004 to The Independent.
His rowing interests have been wide. In 1994, he started work on his enterprising scheme, with others, to set up the River and Rowing Museum in Henley. He was responsible for creating the rowing collection and library and curating special exhibitions; the museum opened its doors in 1998. More recently he started up and contributed talks to rowing history symposia at the Museum.
He was the founding editor of Britain’s Regatta magazine and FISA’s World Rowing magazine. He edited Regatta from 1987 to 2002 and sat on FISA’s media commission between 1990 and 2002. He contributed articles to BR’s Rowing & Regatta magazine, which ceased its paper version last year.
His writing output has been prolific and he is probably one of the best known rowing authors on the international stage. He has published nine books to date, and apart from the LRC history these have included histories of Henley Royal Regatta, the Boat Race, and World Rowing.
He has also taken part on the international stage. He served as press chief at the World Rowing Championships in 1986 and 1994, and editor of the Olympic News Service at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. He was also media chief at the 2002 Commonwealth and World Student Games regattas in Nottingham.
Perhaps Chris’ greatest strength is his inimitable writing style, which is witty and concise, and learned, as we found when he wrote the club history. For his current output, members are recommended to read his contributions to the website Hear The Boat Sing.
1950’s THAMES CUP
In a recent issue of London Roar, we mentioned that Chris Woodall, who joined in 1947, had recently reached the 75th year of his membership.
Chris rowed in four Thames Cup crews in the early 1950s. He has kindly sent us a clutch of Henley photos and press cuttings to look at, via his daughter Caroline. We thought members might be interested to see the following two crews from 1952 and 1955, taken from Henley bridge. (It is perhaps worth noting that, up to 1967, the Club’s second eight entered the Thames Cup, and the first eight the Grand.)
Above is the 1952 Thames Cup eight. Chris is at bow; Dennis Ashton (after whom the Ashton Room is named) is at 2; and of particular interest is 4, Graham Hill, who was later to carve out a successful career as the F1 racing driver. This is the only image we have come across so far of Graham rowing in a London crew.
This crew reached the Semi-Finals, losing out to the Univ. of Pennsylvania, the eventual winners, by 2/3 of a length.
A particularly good shot of the 1955 Thames Cup eight, above. Chris remains on bowside but has moved up to 7. Colin Kester, who died a year or two back, is at stroke in typical fighting form. At 4 is Simon Crosse, who was the architect for the Club’s major modernisation project in 1970/71. He and John Vigurs (at 5) went on to race as GB internationals.
The crew also reached the Semi-Finals, losing out again to a US crew, this time MIT (also the eventual winners), by 3/4 of a length after leading to the Barrier and Fawley.
Julian Ebsworth
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
