Rowathon and Gloucester Head

On 7th February the Great Marlow rowers set out to row 1,000 kilometres on rowing machines, to raise money for much needed equipment. The senior rowers started the day at 07:00 and had already surpassed 250 km by the time they stopped for lessons. During the day the Year 7s and Year 8s competed in crews from each form to amass as many metres as they could, and then the senior rowers were back at the end of the school day to push the total higher.

The level of enthusiasm displayed by the key stage 3 students as they pulled hard on the ergos and shouted encouragement to their form mates was fantastic to see, if slightly deafening. The main competition however, was to see which form could raise the most money from the three year groups in KS3. The winning form was 7 O, with a grand total of £478 before gift aid, so very well done to them.

The total distance rowed was just over 1,300 km and, more importantly, the money raised came to around £8,000.  While down on last year’s total it was still an impressive achievement from the students and will help us buy the new boats the club needs.

Gloucester Head

On Sunday 5th March some 50 rowers went to Gloucester to compete in the Head of the River race there. All the crews did exceptionally well given fairly unpleasant conditions with regular heavy showers and  a brisk wind along the canal. GMSBC had four 1st places and five  2nd places over  the four divisions that were run during the day.

The younger boys were particularly successful with wins in both the Year 8 and the Year 9 quads event. The Year 9 boys also came first in the double sculls event.

Other notable performances were Toby Lassen who came second in Year 10 single sculls, and Robert Petrea who came second in Year 11 singles, racing up a year and in the fourth 4km race of the weekend for him.