Sail & Oar festival Cumbrae regatta and junior crew medal win

Rowing members from the club competed in a day of sprint races along the beach front providing quite a spectacle for on lookers, Adam along with Stewart from port Seton Rowing club organized the day’s events and race program. Crews from Anstruther, Port Seton, Firth of Clyde , Galgale and Troon, Cumbrae. Port Seton took overall regatta victory with Anstruther missing out by 3 points, Royal West took 4th place in the points.

Our mixed open crew just missed out on victory with an unusual dead heat result at on the first run . Stranger things took place over the day, on the Men’s open we had info that the secret weapon in the form of Ron Graham was on route and on the bus, it was decided that Ron should be  in the crew however Ron had come over for a relaxing day with the family. Ron was informed by phone that he had been press ganged into the crew and was to tell the driver to get a move on, start umpire (RWSABC’s  Jim Ford) was asked (told) to delay the start to give Ron time,  the sight of Ron running off the bus, down the beach scattering small children in the process and getting into the boat was quite a sight…. Ron  caught a crab mid race and was promptly told to get back on the bus…..to be fair to Ron this was his first experience of using our new Pin rowing system and new oars so thanks.

Our Junior crew took the Junior medal which was a fantastic as they had not trained before as a crew so congratulations to them. Our women’s crew which included Irene Hughes who added a competitive edge and was former member who has recently returned from Australia, this crew made the semi finals only to a strong Anstruther crew, It was great to see Irene back competing for the Royal West

Whiteforeland crewed by Campbell, Yvonne and John provide the opportunity for member of the public to give rowing a try and there was a regular stream of people wanting to get on the water..

A really good day, next stop North Berwick on the 24th of August

Come and try rowing nights continue on a Thursday night from 6.30 if you would like to get involved

Alex Paterson

Captain of Boats