Year: 2023

As now seems traditional the winds dropped and the sun began to shine, lighting the burnt autumn colours that line the Caledonian Canal.  It could only mean that it was time for the Inverness Fours and Small Boats Head once more, this edition sponsored by Caley Marina.  With six hundred and fifteen entries the waters were only going to stay calm for so long!

As always it is fantastic to see some truly quick crews making the 4500m course fly by.  The fastest crew of the weekend was the University of St Andrews BC R1 Quad stroked by Aidan Graham making it down the course in a time of 14 minutes 48.55 seconds (that’s holding a split of 1:29 for the whole course!) and the fastest women’s crew was also from the University of St Andrews BC with their R1 Quad stroked by Lizzy Adlam in a time of 16 minutes 12.89 seconds.  The overall winner of the Head of the Caledonian Canal 2023 was St Andrew BC, breaking the strangle hold that the University of Edinburgh have had on this award for a number of years.

It was hugely unfortunate that when Sunday came dawn never really appeared on the canal due to dense fog which persistently sat in the Inverness basin while the surrounding hills basked in the sun under clear blue skies.  The water remained flat calm and provided a beautiful row for those that could head on out after the racing was unfortunately called off for the day.

Inverness was well represented throughout the races which did go ahead on the Saturday.  A notable mention goes to the Novice 4+ stroked by Sam Roxburgh for making 2^nd in their event despite being relatively new to sweep rowing.  There were wins for Inverness in the J14 singles, with Shay Hammock coming home 45 seconds ahead of his nearest competitor, and the reunited composite pair of Conor Burgess (Chesterton Rowing Club) and Steven Andrews who took first place in the Masters 2- despite having a 2 year gap since their last outing.

Thanks to Stanislav Vohnik for documenting the weekend superbly – his photos can be found here.

Weblink to the events page: events.invernessrowing.uk/nov2023

The Aberdeen Sprint Regatta is a favourite event in the Inverness Rowing Club road-trip calendar and memories of the sun-drenched banks of the Dee sat well in our memories from last years event.  With a large IRC contingent heading east it was going to be a busy day of racing. We had a bumper entry of 29 crews racing across all boat categories (it was a very full trailer!) and crews included juniors, getting their first taste of sprint racing, to experienced masters and even generational doubles.

The short, 500 m, format of the Aberdeen Sprints always provides some exciting racing but to add to this IRC came away with a number of great performances and, as a consequence, not an insignificant number of medals. The first of these came from a close race between two Inverness crews in the R2 Mixed 4+ (winning crew: were Harry Ratcliffe, Euan McLeod, Bethany Hickling and Hannah Luke with cox James Luke).  Other wins were earned in the Novice 2x (Victor Atkinson and Samuel Roxburgh) and Open J14 1x (Shay Hammock) categories.  One of the most deserved of victories was in the Generational 2x with Gary Hunt and James Luke battling through two heats before winning in the final with a convincing lead.  A further medal was earned in the Masters 2- (Robert Gordon and Dave Rothwell).  Having won their heat against a Masters “A” crew they met their long time and well-known competitors from Aberdeen Boat Club.  Due to age differences in the masters crews, the Inverness crew had to win their race by a handicap of at least 10 seconds.  The final result was declared a draw when the timing team recorded a difference of only a tenth of a second between the crews, meaning that the medals were shared.  Races certainly don’t come much closer than that!

It was a fabulous day and a great experience for all those involved.  Thanks go to all the organisers, coaches, drivers and supporters that made the day a huge success.

Last weekend provided a perfect weather window for a reunion of the Rogie Falls Boatclub, the precursor to Inverness Rowing Club (more here).  Thirty five years ago this crew made their way down to the Head of the River Race on the famous Tideway course, the same as the Boat Race course but in reverse.

Gay Faulkner (cox), Iain Morton (Str), Mark Wilson (7), Bruce Murdoch (6), Jamie MacLean (5), Alec Maciver (4), Jonny Wetherspoon (3), David Finlayson (2) and Iain Leighton (Bow) showed they still know how to row and made the most of the fine weather.  Having led to the formation of the club we all row for today we are all hugely grateful to the impetus they provided to establish rowing on the Caledonian Canal and they will always be welcome back at the club.  Getting the boat in and out of the canal is certainly easier than when this crew first started training here, when it took a 300m carry and negotiating a stile!