The 2010 Great River Race - 25 September - Next Weekend!!

CJL

CJL

Well-Known Member
Joined
27 May 2010
Messages
499
Location
London
Visit site
Evening all,

Just thought I'd stick up a post about this year's Great River Race. It will be going ahead on Saturday the 25th of September with 320 competitors in all shapes and sizes of boats from Cornish Gigs to Dragon Boats, Jolly Boats to Cutters and up to 50 safety and support boats.

Everybody is welcome to moor up and view the race as it passes (approx an hour to and hour and a half) anywhere along the route from London Docklands up to Ham House. We'd request that spectators boats stay clear of the competitors whilst they are underway and take notice of the NTMs issued by the PLA, particularly with regards the river closure between Petersham Ait and Eel Pie Island at the finish.

At the finish there is a bar and live band which competitors, supporters and spectators are all invited to take advantage of!!:D

Chris
 
Last edited:
A great event and have crewed a support boat in the past. Last year was run upstream/with tide, what is happening this year?
 
They are rowing from Docklands upriver to Ham on a flooding tide.

Last year was the first time we'd run it tupriver and it worked really well so we gave in to popular demand and we're doing the same again this year as well.

All we need now is fingers crossed for the weather!

Chris
 
Mrs Ramage is coxing "Dorney" a Thames Rosalind Skiff. The Erik The Red Explorer Unit are rowing the boat (my son is one of the Explorers).

All the team are under 17 (except for SWMBO) who is "over 21".

:)

give them a big cheer if you see them! (In fact cheer all the boats... They are all heroically mad!).
 
I am doing it in a brand new 18ft Hanningfield skiff, im just putting the finishing touches to her & she gets a test on friday, crew is sorted, hope it isnt too windy!
 
Safety Briefing a couple of years back , when the PLA still had 'proper' boats !

safety%20briefing.jpg
 
I was really pleased I arrived early that day. SOOOOO many people climbed in and out of my boat!

Last year I went out in the "Lambeth" the new PLA launch. Its not a GRP boat its ally and with twin John Deere inboards it went well.

Chris
 
Last edited:
I was a Safety Boat on the very first one and what a fiasco that was but I guess they were on a learning curve. I pulled 18 people (I think) out of the river between Tower Bridge and St Kats, their Dragon Boat had overturned. I took two other Safety Boats in tow as they'd run out of fuel. Finally I had to tow 8 competitors back up to Richmond in the middle of the night because no arrangements had been made to get boats back upstream.
All good fun though :)
 
CJL said:
Last year I went out in the "Lambeth" the new PLA launch. Its not a GRP boat its ally and with twin John Deere inboards it went well.

Chris
Click to expand...

Not seen that one , we just see the Richmond and Chelsea ( i think ) with the Tohatsu Diesel outboards on them.

The PLA guys hate them. I saw one of them nearly smash into the side of the lock island last winter trying to turn around , the river is about 70 metres wide there , but the stream just caught it .... they missed by about 2 metres.
 
Every year since Marian & Alex have been doing the race at least one (sometimes more than one) Dragon boat sinks in the Pool of London. The high waves there and the length of the dragon boat leads to swamping.

This years race format suits our 3 Sea Scout boats (Explorers, Scouts & Leaders) because they are rowing back to home waters, which is better for crew morale ( and makes life easier at the end of the race for us too!).

Good luck to all the participants, and thanks in advance to the supporters and spectators. Their cheers really help the crews.
 
What a great day! we did it in my newly built 18ft Hanningfield Skiff & we finished well up in the fleet, it was very rough indeed coming up from the start to Tower bridge & pretty lumpy wherever the wind was against the tide, Thanks to all the support boat crews nice to know you lot are there when you are fighting it out in a small rowing boat!
I must say that the beer tasted rather good at the finish.
 
Well that has to be the best Great River Race yet!

Only two minor incidents and a bit of towimg for tthe very last back markers. In the end we had 339 boats and 2455 people on the water at anytime - not bad going if you ask me!

Chris
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top