Please check out our “Regatta Page” for updates

Results can be found at Results.regattaweb.co.uk.

We look forward to seeing everyone again next year on 16th June 2012.

For further information on Saturday’s events please see our regatta page.

We look forward to seeing you here on Saturday.

City Barge is an interestingly different rowing club, dedicated to rowing beautiful and sometimes  historic boats. The club is based at Long Bridges Boathouse on the River Isis (or Thames) in Oxford near the confluence with the River Cherwell, not far from the Oxford Canal.

They practise regularly in Oxford and also row in many other places in the UK and Europe.  Every May City Barge goes to Venice to take part in the Voga Longa, which is 32km and demands some fitness and the ability to handle wind, tide and choppy conditions. The City Barge’s members are all ages and both male and female.   They have the common interest in wanting to row, which is excellent exercise, but they also admire beautifully constructed rowing boats. Besides watermanship, they also enjoy the aerobic exercise, the beautiful wooden boats and the party atmosphere that goes with them. Many of them also love Venice – particularly in May.   They enjoy taking brief holidays rowing down beautiful rivers in England, France and other countries.

The club has two captains – one for rowing Venetian style – and the other for sitting down – in the English style.  In both cases they encourage flexibility of side and skill – so that whoever turns up should get a row.   City Barge sends crews of both types of crews to Venice and they participate in many other events participate in many other events.

Online entries open now, see our regatta section for more details.

Two of the rowers were in the fastest race of the day – the Open Heavyweight men’s event, a race that usually requires a sub 6.20 to medal…

Ewan Cameron, a novice from last year completed his 2k in the time of 6.49.9 and finished 9th overall – punching well above his age range where most of the competitors were in there 20’s. Benjamin Twiney a relatively new member was competing at his first indoor rowing event and smashed his PB in the impressive time of 6.28.7! Unfortunately this wasn’t fast enough to medal against some brutally fast heavyweights – including Sergey Surovov who pulled a 1.06 split on his 500m race later on in the day!

Men’s Captain Ben Gittus-Smith had to fight for his gold medal in the Open Lightweight event against current GB triallist Elliot Barton. Both rowers rowed within 0.1-0.3 seconds of each other for the first 1700metres in a tense battle – the Stratford lightweight only pulled ahead with 30 strokes to go with an almighty push, which the Commonwealth rowing gold medallist could not respond to, finally ending up two seconds behind Ben’s 6.26.0 PB.

Ben Gittus-Smith has now won the Open Lightweight category at the British, Welsh and the English Indoor Rowing events for 2010/11

The first race was a straight semi-final against Upton RC who the Stratford crew after a rapid start pulled ahead of and held off to win by four and a half lengths.

Barely forty-five minutes later the crew were again on the start line against the home team Worcester, who seemed to have all the advantages being on familiar territory, having a considerable height advantage and being ahead on the staggered start. Stratford found themselves down on Worcester for the first 300m; however, crew confidence and cool coxing from Jen Clements allowed Stratford to reel-in Worcester. This was accelerated by a crab from the home team, which allowed Stratford to surge ahead of Worcester in front of the home team’s club and cheering supporters to win by a length.

IM3 4+ Cox: Jen Clements, Stroke: James Gordon, 3: Ben Gittus-Smith, 2: Paul Johnson, Bow: Luke Russell.