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2023 was a great season of coastal rowing, with 8 regattas held and lots of close racing.

In club terms the victors were Herne Bay – winning the CARA League and Shoreham taking the Grand Aggregate. However, those two clubs did not have it all their own way, as 5 clubs took more than 10 wins during the season and every single club gained at least one.

In senior event terms, Deal were the crew to beat – taking Men’s Singles, Pairs and Fours and Women’s Fours (though Worthing took the Women’s Pairs title in dominant fashion). Shoreham and Southsea seemed the forces in the Junior categories, with Shoreham taking the Men’s Fours and Pairs Championships and a number of victories in Women’s Fours and Pairs, and Southsea grabbing the Women’s Junior Fours and Pairs as well as wins in the Men’s Pairs event too.

We saw great progression from the smaller clubs, with Hastings fielding crews and multiple regattas and taking a victory and Eastbourne building out new squads and fielding more crews than we’ve seen for a long while.

So where do we look for the excitement in 2024? Here’s my tips:

Women’s Juniors – both Shoreham and Herne Bay took victories here in 2023 without going up to senior, I suspect they might each be strong again in 2024 now that Southsea have gained promotion to Senior.

Masters 40 and 50 – with the advent of average age in Masters 50s expect more crews here and more close racing between last years winners Herne Bay and Runners up Shoreham and competition from Eastbourne and Hastings too.

Herne Bay took Junior Sculls championship and were undefeated in 2023, can their promising youngsters make the step up and win in Senior to challenge serial winners Deal? Will the promotion of Herne Bay’s finest from this event let some of the Novices from last year show their talent and progress?

Women’s Sculls – with the final establishment of a women’s sculling hierarchy expect more competitors and more close racing here, as 3 different women took victories in novices last year.

The COVID-19 pandemic which has blighted so many lives, finally appears to be lessening its grip on the UK, and for us that means a return of rowing regattas on the South Coast. No regattas were held during 2020 and the first half of the 2021 season was also cancelled. However, as of the 11th of July 2021, we are back up and running!

Folkestone had the honour of being the first post-COVID race, after Worthing lost out owing to the lockdown extension.

We’re so pleased to be back and are looking forward to many more races to come this year and beyond.

Thomas Barwell and Victoria Ward of Deal Rowing Club have broken the world record for the longest tandem ergometer row (Heavyweight Mixed 19 and Under). They together kept a single rowing machine running for 37 Hours straight, which is incredible!

The 2019 calendar is now on the website, go to ‘Competition’ -> 2019 Race calendar to see or click here 2019 Calendar

The last time Hastings rowing club held Hastings Regatta was back in 2012. This year the club triumphantly held the regatta again in celebration of their 150th anniversary.

A number of CARA clubs sent representatives to take part in the second British Rowing Indoor Championships on Sat 12th December 2015  – with some excellent results for the coast against rowers from across the UK.

The coast’s top result came early in the day, with Shoreham’s Charlotte Pigg taking home the British Champion title, cruising to gold in the women’s 30-39 2k category in a time of 7mins 17secs, significantly ahead of the other competitors in her field.

Shoreham’s Charlotte Pigg taking the Gold Medal at the British Rowing Indoor Championships 2015 – credit Naomi Baker

Shoreham also produced two other medal winners, with bronzes from Sarah Faith in the women’s 30-39 lightweight category and from Max Huxtable in the open men’s lightweight competition. The latter had a storming start, matching the eventual winner GB rower Richard Chambers stroke for stroke over the first 500m.However, unable to maintain the pace set by the full-time GB athlete, Max would eventually take the bronze medal;  an impressive performance against one of the nation’s best lightweight rowers.

Max Huxtable’s storming start in the open men’s lightweight competition

Eastbourne’s Steve Turner took home CARA’s final medal – a bronze in the men’s 50-54 category with an impressive 6:32.6.

Alongside the CARA competitors there were impressive sights as the GB mens eight battled it out in the open 2k event – a huge time from Moe Sbihi as he took Matthew Pinsent’s long-standing British record.

A huge congratulations to CARA’s medal winners, and to everyone who took part in the event. Other times were impressive against stiff national competition and show the strength of the coastal rowers.

Full results from the CARA competitors below:

Medal winners in bold

Congratulations to Reece, Owen and Luke Mullaney from Deal Rowing Club who this weekend completed an epic sponsored cycle ride from Southsea to Herne Bay in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust.

The ‘CARA Unites Against Cancer’ event was dreamt up by the trio, and saw them stop at every CARA rowing club across the two days, being joined on each leg by one or two members of each club.

The boys’ efforts to unite the association in fundraising has been fantastic – to donate to their cause click here.

We’ve got a new website! So we at CARA have finally succumbed to pressure from members to update the website and bring a more up to date experience to current and potential rowers from the South East.

We think our new website is a great step forward and will allow anyone to understand what we do, why we do it and to see how our clubs are progressing both in the league and via posting event on our news page.

Please bear with us while we finalise this new design and get to grips with the site, while we do this we will gratefully receive all constructive feedback.

WE NEED YOU!

Whilst we have a new website to shout about we need help from our members to maintain and update it, please get in touch (using the contact page) if you are willing to help!