Oars for Ocean | World Rowing Celebrates World Oceans Day

The Gorge Waterway wakes slowly on a Sunday morning. Mist drifts across the inlet as a great blue heron watches from the shoreline. At the Gorge Narrows Rowing Club, volunteers are already moving boats to the dock — preparing for a day that is about much more than Rowing.

Today, the gates are open. Everyone is welcome to step into a boat, pick up an oar, and discover what this waterway feels like from out on the water.

The occasion is Oars for Ocean, the club’s annual open day held in celebration of World Oceans Day — and a fitting name for a fitting place. The Gorge Narrows Rowing Club doesn’t just train on this waterway; it tends to it. Members have spent years monitoring the inlet, organising shoreline cleanups, and collaborating with conservation groups to protect the tidal waters they call home. Club director Rachel Davis has led much of that work.

Out on the water, coach Noa Hardcastle helms the coach boat — and one detail says everything about her priorities: the outboard motor is electric, its hum barely disturbing the morning quiet. Hardcastle is the club’s ecological driver as much as its coach. A former member of the women’s varsity eight at the University of Victoria, she now teaches chemical oceanography at her alma mater.

What’s happening on this quiet inlet is part of something larger. World Rowing’s partnership with the World Wildlife Fund through the Healthy Waters Alliance reflects a growing recognition that the places rowers train — rivers, lakes, coastal waterways — are among the ecosystems most in need of protection. Healthy water isn’t just a rower’s concern; it underpins food security, climate resilience, and the broader health of the natural world.

Few understand that more viscerally than Martin Helseth. A two-time Olympian from Ålesund on Norway’s western coast, Helseth competed in the Men’s Double Sculls alongside Kjetil Borch at the Paris 2024 Games. Since then, he has traded the boat for a wetsuit. Now a full-time ocean conservationist, he is the founder of Rewild Norway, a non-profit dedicated to recovering lost fishing gear and removing marine waste from the ocean. Working alongside the Oslo Freediving Club, Martin has organised a series of marine cleanups that have to date removed over 55 tonnes of litter from the North Sea off the Norwegian coastline.

“I am very happy to champion the Healthy Waters Alliance and help create a global movement to protect where we row, where we live,” said Helseth.

Christine Cavallo brings a similar drive from a different direction. A two-time competitor for Team USA at the World Rowing Championships, Cavallo has joined Helseth as a World Rowing Healthy Waters Alliance Ambassador. Since 2021, she has also been competing in the Beach Sprints event with her eye firmly on the LA28 Games, while working in engagement and operations for the UN Global Compact.

“The world’s oceans are some of the most biodiverse and unexplored areas of our planet,” she says. “But life under water — and even life on land — depends on the health of our seas.”

Join the Movement

From community open days and shoreline cleanups to recovery projects and everyday actions, rowers around the world are showing how sport can be a genuine force for environmental change.

The story unfolding on the Gorge Waterway is just one example of what is possible.

Imagine if every rowing club:

• Organised a local clean-up or water monitoring initiative

• Reduced its environmental footprint through sustainable practices

• Partnered with environmental organisations

• Used its platform to educate and inspire communities

As Gorge Narrows Rowing Club did, others already dared to face the truth and took the step to be part of the change – read their stories here.

These actions, multiplied across the global rowing family, would create a powerful wave of change.

A Call to the Global Rowing Community

As the international federation for rowing, World Rowing is committed to using the sport’s unique relationship with water to inspire action in support of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals — particularly those focused on clean water, climate action, and life below water.

This World Oceans Day, we want to hear from you. Whether your club is organising an environmental initiative, reducing its impact on local waterways, or championing sustainability in your community, share your story with the World Rowing Sustainability Team at sustainability@worldrowing.com.

It’s in Our Nature to act.