Well, they did it. Having left Lechlade at 8.30 on Thursday, they rowed and rowed, sometimes for 12 hour days, arriving at Teddington on Saturday evening. After a 5.30 start on Sunday, they reached the Houses of Parliament at 9am.
Throughout the whole trip, their humour never left them, and they just focussed and kept going ... despite a few hiccups [launch boat had an oil problem, the rigger broke and unbelievably Molesley lock even broke as they were about to go through...].
An incredible feat. Please donate - every penny goes towards a new boat for Borlase.
Hi and thanks for coming to our Justgiving page.
I’m Ben. And I’m Ryan. We’re both just finishing year 10 at Sir William Borlase’s Grammar School in Marlow and this summer we’ve decided to try to raise money for our school’s rowing club so that we can buy a racing 8, but it’s not easy. They can cost anything up to £35,000, but if we want to stay competitive, that’s what we need to do.
We race all year round, both at regattas and head races; our club operates from a couple of caravans in a muddy field, but we are very determined, we have a lot of spirit and some brilliant coaching, and that shows: at the National Championships this year, of 81 competitors, 39 of us came home with a medal. Our club is also racing at Henley Royal Regatta. As you can imagine, when we’re there, we want to do particularly well.
Our plan is to row the entire navigable Thames as a sponsored event to begin to raise this money. The journey will start at St John’s Lock, near Lechlade, which is where the river becomes navigable and we intend to row downstream all the way to Poplar or (weather-permitting) the Thames Barrier. That’s about 45 locks and 160 miles, which we aim to complete in 4 days at a push, from 19 August.
We’re looking for donations from our friends and families, of course, but also from local companies. There will be a lot of press coverage with one or two staged photo-opportunities along the way, and we’ll make sure that any corporate sponsors will have their logo displayed PROMINENTLY. For greater visibility, in addition to this page, we have our own dedicated website (www.rowthethames.co.uk) where we will be listing and thanking all of our corporate sponsors.
For anyone wishing to check our progress, both of the training and the journey itself, we’ll also be writing a blog.
Please give what you can: every single donation, no matter how small (or huge) will be gratefully received and we can assure anyone donating that 100% of the money raised will go straight to the Sir William Borlase Rowing Club ‘Project 8’. We are funding the actual trip ourselves.
In an ideal world, we’d love to find a sponsor who would be prepared to fund the purchase of this new boat. In return, we would brand the vessel with the organisation’s logo (there are some great opportunities here) for the life of the boat. That means thousands of people a year would be reminded of your company and its association with a young, determined, successful crew. If you are interested in discussing this further, please call 07768 164 314 or email drcox01@googlemail.com.
