Renew your membership for 2012
The UKSRL has adopted an online membership system for 2012. You can now use your credit / debit card to pay your annual membership of £30 and also pay for a Boat Loan at one of the UKSRL events at £5 per rower (minimum of 4 rowers).
Secure payment through Paypal
Just click on the Membership link in the top navigation bar or on the rightside of this web page and follow the links
"schimpulls"
Truro River Race Saturday 21st April 2012
10km of blood and blisters and all on rolling seats
High tide at Truro Flood gate is 18:16hrs
Women row from Restronquet Sailing club to Truro - start time 17:00 hrs
Men row the return leg to the Sailing Club - start time 18:20hrs (handicap)
UKSRL Annual General Meeting 2011
The Annual General Meeting of United Kingdom Surf Rowers League was held on Sunday 20th November 2011 at The RNLI Support Centre, Station Road, Perranporth.
Thanks to Dickon Berriman - RNLI Lifeguard Manager for his permissions to use the Perranporth RNLI venue ............(note: you need more mugs for the tea and coffee)
Minutes of General Meeting - Nov 2011
Sir Matthew Pinsent rows a Surfboat
Yes, rub your eyes and read that title again !
The UKSRL has been working with Explore Rowing to introduce school rowing using surfboats as the stable rowing craft.
In November 2010 Truro High School for Girls and Truro School took part in a Learn to Row course with the funding support of the Cornwall Sports Partnership. Redruth School has also shown interest for 2011. In order to draw attention to this inititiative Ed Hartgill a teacher at Redruth School and a surfboat rower made a telephone call to Sir Matthew Pinsent and asked him to help promote school rowing in Cornwall.
Ed and his fellow crew members at Porthtowan found Sir Matthew a pair of Speedos and the rest as they say is history.
He must have enjoyed himself as he later tweeted:-
"bouncy afternoon with nutters from Porthtowan Surf club. Cold water, small trunks and big cahones. Nuff said"
The Vogalonga 2011
What is that you may ask.?
The Vogalonga is an annual one day event held in Venice to celebrate rowing boats and craft moved by manpower alone. It was first concieved 37 years ago to draw attention to the damage being done to the structure of the city by the wash of powercraft. In 2009 Twickenham RC used their surfboat to row the 30km course.
The event starts in front of St Marks Square row out to the islands of Burano and Murano and back through the city down the Grand Canal. In 2011 with the assistance of the rowers at the Canottieri Milano rowing club, Perranporth SLSC repeated the exercise with their blue "Rattler" surfboat, the only surfboat in the event.
UKSRL Summer Series 2011
The first event of the season takes place at Coney Beach, Porthcawl, Wales on bank holiday Sunday May 29th. There have been some crew changes with crews retiring and new crews formed over the winter period.
With the all conquering Bude Runners retired, there is now an opening for a new Womens crew to come to the front. The Porthtowan Blue Rinsers look hot (despite their age) and the Perranporth Phoenix crew laid down a marker by winning the Truro Rive Race in April. Bournemouth Surfboat Club have a womens crew entered for Round 1 so it will be interesting to see how the results pan out.
In the Mens event Porthtowan Blue Bali have to be favourites following their trip downunder to New Zealand in January. Ed Hartgil has returned as a man with a mission, to encourage new rowers to take up the sport. The Bude Barracudas have some new faces and it will be intersting to see how they fare this season. Perranporth have worked hard to attract new rowers to their Mens and Womens crews, it will take time for them to learn the skills.The Croyde Kangaroos have been very quiet this winter. The Newport crew from W Wales are attending their first Summer Series event and are planning to contest more events this year. The Llantwit Major Crocodiles also from Wales must be in with a very good chance this season to grab some english scalps.
Further into the summer the Amsterdam Mongrols are planning to contest some of the Summer Series in preparation for the European Championships in September. The Begle womens crew are also coming to the UK for more quality racing and Thames RC are mounting a more serious campaign to try and take the Open Surfboat Championship 2011 trophy at the end of July.
Truro River Race 2011
Note for your diary:
The annual 10km Truro River Race for Surfboats (use rolling seats) on Saturday April 16th 2011.
This year Mens crews row from Restronquet Sailing Club -Mylor, up the river to Boscawen Park and the Women race back down the river to finish at The Sailing club.
High tide at Truro is 16.44hrs and it is a 6.8m tide = no mud on the feet !
Start time for mens crews at Mylor to be 15:30hrs
Women start at 17:00hrs
See this years event report and finish times
Day of Giants 2011 - Piha NZ
The boys from Porthtowan Blue Bali and GB now head for Piha on the west coast of north island New Zealand for the annual Day of Giants surfboat event on Saturday 12th February.
This venue is famous for big surf and if you are a person with a nervous disposition you best not click the link........read more
See Andy's UKSRL blog and the report from the crew with photos. Love to have been in the boat to hear the sympathetic words Gary is using to urge the crew on, to get over the oncoming beast !
On the other hand if you like Muse ( from Teignbridge, Devon ) you could risk it..... Ooops copyright infringement and the audio track has been silenced.
Have replaced film with another which gives a mellow feel to the size of the Piha surf.
International Surfboat Challenge - New Zealand 2011
3rd Test Results and report - Mark Bourneville AKA "Horse" from Piha
The day was again pretty dammed flat with a bit of wind blowing, a real shame that over the whole week the crews never saw any surf at all ( apart from a small bump approaching the beach ) This beach can produce some good surf and would have made the racing a lot more interesting for spectators and no doubt the crews with a bit of surf running ? but its was what it was...
Boat Race 1
1. New Zealand
2. New Zealand Development
3. Australia
4. Australia Development
5. Great Britain
Boat Race 2
1. New Zealand
2. New Zealand Development
3. Australia Development
4. Great Britain
DQ : Australia
Boat Race 3
1. Australia
2. New Zealand
3. Australia Development
4. New Zealand Development
5. Great Britain
The low down from the last day, NZ Titahi Bay only needed one win on the day to secure the Test series, they managed to grab that in the first race to seal the series win, they also grabbed the second win on the day as the Whale Beach boys got a DQ by not rounding their buoy on the turn,
Whale beach came home in the last race of the day, Well done to Titahi Bay, 6-3 is a good result, they are a top crew but talking to them after, the Aussies didn't make it easy and they worked bloody hard to get the result.
The Development was a lot closer with the day starting at 3-2 to NZ, Piha grabbed the first and then after Dee Why rowed their guts out on the second ( they turned first at the cans even in front of the Senior crews) they again unfortunately got rowed down right on the line when the Piha Boys jumped on a small bump from behind to snatch the series win.
Dee Why grabbed the last race by a fair stretch. Not wanting to take anything away from the Piha victory because they rowed bloody well! The Dee Why boys rowed their guts out and did have a couple of races snatched from them from behind right on the line, but as they say “ That’s Surf boats “
The Great Britain Boys had a good crack every time but just found themselves off the pace slightly, they weren’t far way but great to see them front up and compete and give it their all each and every time.
