Challenging the Thames

It was third time lucky for five rowers from Great Britain when they took on the Guiness World Records to row the complete length of the navigable part of England’s River Thames in record breaking time.

Nearly 300 kilometres (187 miles) of water lay between Martin Hirst, Keith Janes, Edwin Howells, Dom Eaton and Richard Burdett and the finish line where the River Thames meets the English Channel. Twenty-eight hours 54 minutes and 8 seconds of rowing later the team had broken the record by nearly two hours.

Rowing a coxed quad the team of five rotated through taking turns at being coxswain and using the advantage of favourable weather and tides to go after the record. The crew rotated every two hours, spending 30 minutes as coxswain. “This gave us the time necessary to replace the calories,” said Hirst who organised the crew. “We ate bananas, cereal bars, flapjack and chocolate bars. We drank an energy drink that had to be diluted with water.”

By the time they had reached the first landmark the Thames Challengers had already made up time on the current record by one minute and the team continued to stretch the time advantage. At the half way point they were up nearly an hour and had already rowed their way past half of the over 200 clubs, schools and universities that row on the Thames.

The team attributes their record breaking success to a number of factors. Hirst explained that they managed to catch a faster tidal stream than usual and the wind that regularly chops up towards the mouth of the Thames stayed away. “We also had 44 locks to go through and having teams to open and shut them for us in the fastest time when the lock keepers were not on duty was vital. We had three teams (of three people), leapfrogging each other to the locks and they knew exactly what was required of them.”

As well as the support team the crew had a friend cycle along beside them for 10 hours as part of his triathlon training. “He joined us in Henley and left us 10 hours and 60 miles later at 4am in the middle of London,” said Hirst.

So will any of the crew be repeating this feat? An emphatic “no” is Hirst’s instant reply.

For more information please go to the official website: www.thameschallenge.co.uk

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