The seeds of Crew ambition were sown in a borrowed Scout gig called ‘Wizard’ and a meeting with the Redbridge Mayor, Linda Huggett back in 2017…
We invited Jan Tennant from SRS Frobisher to cox the race and benefited from her expertise with tidal experience, and vast experience with tides at Putney. This training proved a vital factor in the Crews performance.
By November 2017 ‘Quilliam’, the Rose Cottage gig, was our preferred choice and would make her début in her first Great River Race.
A support team was sourced and the logistics to ‘Quilliam’’s entry researched. Barnehurst registered the entry to the race in March 2018, taking advantage of the ‘early bird’ option.
Training at Fairlop in ‘Wizard’ continued and during a summer Rose Cottage week we rowed ‘Quilliam’, Jan as cox, with ‘Sea Griffin’ in company, along to Marlow for a day testing best rowing positions.
On Saturday Sept 8th ‘Quilliam’’s Crew met at Canary Wharf very early in the morning.
After walking to Millwall Dock we located the gig, which had been towed up the night before and launched ready to start the race.
The biggest obstacles were the spectacular waves just downstream from Tower Bridge. They were huge! But we survived and continued along the 21.6 mile course in good style.
It was interesting seeing some well known landmarks from the water; Tower of London, London Eye, Oxo Tower and London Bridge to name a few.
A little over four hours after the start we saw the finishing line come into view. What a relief! A very tired, but very happy, Crew of rowers had completed the course!
There were over 335 boats taking part and we’d finished an hour and a half before the last straggler crossed the line. That was some mean achievement and we all felt we’d earned our certificate, and, of course an ice cream!
