Cotehele Quay Gig Club News Articles

Helford Mini Scillies

Jane Fitzsimons — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 09:49:15 +0000

What a great day at Helford for their Mini Scillies event. 6 of our Scillies crews took part .It was ideal training with the wind, waves and very busy start lines.

Results were LSV 5th, MV 3rd, LA 5th, MA 12th and MB 17th.

Many thanks to Helford River Gig Club for the superb organisation, cakes and the boat loan.

Three Rivers Race 2025

Jane Fitzsimons — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 09:00:56 +0000

Our results were:

LA 8th Govenek

LB 37th Gallos

OA/MA 20th Gallos

OB/MB 33rd Govenek

LSV 71st Joker

Some sterling results from all crews Thankyou to caradongigclub for hosting and everyone who helped on the day from coxes to towers

Concept January 25 Challenge

Jane Fitzsimons — Wed, 05 Feb 2025 17:45:29 +0000

44 people signed up from across the club for the January Concept Challenge 2025. The goal was straight forward ,erg as much as you can in January .We finished at over 5 million metres, 5,179,070 metres to be exact. That was 65th out of 775 teams world wide and the No1 team in the UK

20 people erged more than 100,000M. Well done to everyone who took part. You erged your club proud.

Top Male (and Overall): Nick Bradley 401,797 M

Top Female: Rowena Smith 361,385M

Top Recreational : Sharon Court 211,249M

Top crew (total metres): Mens A 1,431,879 M

Juniors take delivery of new lightweight gig thanks to grant from The Rowing Foundation

Jim Hartill — Mon, 07 Oct 2024 19:26:48 +0100

Cotehele Quay Gig Club would like to thank The Rowing Foundation for their grant of £4,000 which has enabled us to purchase a new lightweight plastic training gig. This will be particularly useful to our younger junior rowers as our older plastic training gigs are heavy and more difficult to lift.

COTEHELE Quay Gig Club are celebrating the start of the rowing season with some of their best results at this year’s World Pilot Gig Championships.

Jane Fitzsimons — Tue, 07 May 2024 15:09:13 +0100

COTEHELE Quay Gig Club are celebrating the start of the rowing season with some of their best results at this year’s World Pilot Gig Championships.

The World Pilot Gig Championships are held on the May Day bank holiday weekend each year and have been running since 1990. Only crews from Cornwall competed in the inaugural event but it has grown exponentially over the years and the amount of pilot gigs attending has rocketed, with entrants coming from across the West Country and even further afield.

Gig rowing has a long history off the Cornish coast and the craft were originally used in the late 17th century, both as work boats and to ferry pilots out to incoming vessels off the Atlantic. Back then, the gigs would race to get their pilot on board a vessel first in order to get the job and receive payment.

The championships, held on the Isles of Scilly, are the highlight in the calendar every year for all gig rowers. Cotehele Quay’s competitive members spent their winter and spring months training hard to get themselves fighting fit for the challenging races over the rowing weekend between Friday, May 3 and Sunday, May 5.

The champs started strong for the Cotehele Quay ladies’ super vets (LSV) and ladies’ vets (LV) with their long race, the St Agnes race, seeing them come back home in 11th and 18th places respectively. Sadly, the ladies’ vets were one of five crews that were disqualified due to a collision on the start line. The ladies’ super vets then raced again for the Nut Rock race and crossed the line in ninth, landing them in the A Heat for the final on Saturday. The final Nut Rock race saw them come in 12th, which was a proud position finish for the dedicated crew.

The St Agnes race for the open crews saw LA come in 12th, LB 38th, MA 61st and MB 107th. The following three Nut Rock races saw some exciting conditions against intense competition.

The final positions saw LA race in the A heat final, finishing 12th in the world and securing a second boat for the club in next year’s championships. LB came in 44th (best Ladies B result in clubs history); Mens A 51st and Mens B 102nd.

Cotehele Quay Gig Club were immensely proud of everyone who competed and flew the flag for Cotehele – especially their three junior rowers who have graduated through to the men’s open crews for A and B - Kane Underwood, Jacob Long and Tom Walters.

Success at Three Rivers

Lindsay Bright — Mon, 04 Mar 2024 20:23:24 +0000

Cotehele Quay Gig Club’s ladies’ and men’s crews enjoyed a cracking start to the rowing season at the highly anticipated Three Rivers Race on Sunday, March 3.

It was a day of celebration for the club - its Ladies’ A and Ladies’ B crews achieved their highest ever results at the event from previous years; Men’s A did well despite two late changes for illness; and it was a first time competing for two of its juniors, who rowed with Men’s B.

The long distance race, run by Caradon Rowing Club, is the first big gig rowing event of the year. It starts at the Tamar Bridge and visits the entrances to the rivers feeding the Tamar.

Cotehele Quay’s Ladies’ A crew, with Cox Sam Rogers, went out in Heat 1 and battled their way around the course. Staying in 7th position most of the way around the race, LA dug deep for the last few hundred metres and overtook Truro to make it back in 51 mins and 54 seconds - achieving the highest result to date, 6th out of 98.

The ladies’ B crew, with Cox Dave Clarke, were out in Heat 5 and overtook 10 boats, managing to jump into the heat above to make it back in the 27th spot in a total of 57 mins. A club record for LB! Ladies’ Super Vets were in Heat 4 and came home in 53rd position with a time of 1 hour 1 min and 47 secs.

Men’s A came in 28th out of 95, with a time of 51 mins and 33 secs while Men’s B came 72nd with 57 mins and 56 secs.

Colin Peters, Cotehele Quay Gig Club Captain, said: ‘The club is tremendously proud of the performance of all of its squads that took part in the gruelling 3 Rivers Race, particularly the Ladies’ A crew; whose hard work over the winter enabled them to achieve a fantastic 6th place.’

January Concept Challenge

Jane Fitzsimons — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 13:56:05 +0000

We had 34 people sign up from across the club for the January Concept Challenge. The goal was straight forward - erg as much as you can in January. We finished at just over 3 million metres - 3,002,341metres to be exact.That was 105th out of 735 teams world wide and considerably ahead of any other Gig club.

16 people erged more than 100,000M. Well done to everyone who took part. You erged your club proud.

Top Male (and Overall): Stuart Burton 217,121 M

Top Female: Becky Mingo 190,272M

Top Recreational : Sharon Court 135,563M

Top crew (total metres): Ladies A

Top crew ( average metres): Mens A

Success at the World Championships

Jane Fitzsimons — Thu, 11 May 2023 16:57:56 +0100

Scillies 2023 was definitely a World Championships to remember. Bad weather and fog caused many travel issues . Some of the club resorted to getting over on a fishing boat to ensure they didnt miss their races.

The fog persisted into the weekend resulting in a few races being cancelled but the conditions were calm.

Every squad was pleased with their results with highlights being;

Ladies Supervets A coming 10th- Club best

Ladies A coming 11th- Club Best

Mens A coming 16th- Club Best

Mens B winning Heat E

Three Rivers 2023 Success

Jane Fitzsimons — Wed, 22 Mar 2023 10:06:12 +0000

The Club had a really successful and enjoyable day in the first big gig rowing event of the year: Three Rivers. A 10km race starting at the Tamar Bridge, rowing up to where the Tamar and Tavy River meets and finishing after turning where the Tamar and Lyhner meet. Hosted by Caradon gig club the 45min-1 hour race is an endurance event loved or hated by our club members. All crews that were fielded did the club proud, for some members, it was their first three rivers! Especially Kane and Freyja who have moved from juniors to competitive well done to both of you. The results from the day were as follows: Ladies A 8th/70, Mens A 11th/70, Ladies B 49th/70 and Mens B 51st/70. The committee and club as a whole are very excited with the start of the season going so well and are now building back stronger for the world championships held on the Isles of Scilly at the end of April.

Tamar League Regatta at Cotehele

Jane Fitzsimons — Thu, 23 Feb 2023 16:59:41 +0000

We all had a great days racing at the last Tamar Winter League Regatta for this season. Thanks to all the local clubs who attended and the all the club volunteers who ensure everything ran smoothly. Special highlights for Cotehele were the Juniors coming 1st (and 2nd). Ladies Vets and Ladies A who all won their races. All adding up to the Club coming first and winning the league.