It’s been a great weekend on the water for rowers in the now-international Castle to Crane race. It’s a highlight of Scottish Coastal Rowing, held over 13 miles on the River Clyde. This year, because of Covid, rowers were invited to compete by rowing five-mile time trials on their home waters. So the competition ranged from entries in Tasmania and Melbourne, to Spain, Holland, across the UK including lots from the West Country as well as Scotland, and Ireland.
Black Rocks member, Chris Mitchell, asked if he could represent the club in his Liteboat – a modern coastal rowing single scull, modified for fixed seat rowing. His first attempt on Friday started in Kinghorn Bay, went west to Burntisland Harbour, turned round and headed back to the start circumnavigating the Black Rocks en-route. Conditions became quite choppy but a respectable time of 59 mins was clocked for the five miles. By Sunday, conditions were improved and calm so a second attempt was made in one of the lowest spring tides of the year. This time, a combination of hugging the shore around Pettycur Beach, then joining the main Forth channel for the return (oh and some hard rowing) knocked ten minutes off the first time. 49 mins 49 secs was the 11th fastest of all 119 race entries, the highest placed 50+ solo rower and highest placed “one rower boat less than 5m”.
“Fair chuffed” was Chris’s verdict on the event, especially glad to have started Black Rocks Rowing Club’s competitive record with a respectable performance.
Now we just need to build our skiff.
