Clwb Rhwyfo Porthmadog Rowing Club

Celtic crews as follows:

News hot of the press from the Dale Marathon Row. Our mixed team has come in second in a competetive field – a big well done to them. This is a long race in some challenging coastal conditions and is a great result.   In other news – Edw decided to defect to a Neyland team a came first in the Mens Vets category – well done to him, splitter.

20 boats in the race with majority boats being mixed. Edw’s boat came in 2nd

A glorious sunny day and a well-organised, if rather poorly attended event (Ynys Mon, Caernarfon, us and Aberystwyth).
The ladies rowed first with Gay rowing in a race first time as replacement for a sick Sue. Geoff coxed, Lesley stroked, Pippa next and Heather’s back held out. Although they finished fourth out of a field of five they were awarded the supervets trophy.
Then it was the men’s turn. Again Geoff coxed and the crew was Bob, Richard, Blackie and Bill. We had a couple of unfortunate turns on buoys and Bob tried to loosen his waistband and together these cost us two boats so we finished up fourth out of a field of five, yet still managed to win the supervets trophy.
The juniors race was abandoned and instead they ran a race in which each boat had to have a junior. Oisin managed to secure a place in a boat which went on to win the race. Well rowed!
We fielded two boats in the mixed race – Heather (cox), Geoff, Natasha, Bob and Lesley and Bill(cox), Richard, Blackie, Pippa and Gay. Bill’s boat drifted onto a buoy and had a disastrous start with Richard knocked off his seat and loosing his foot straps. However they managed to catch up one boat and overtook it on the first buoy. Heather’s boat battled hard but only managed to finish just in front of Bill’s boat. No trophies for us in the mixed category!
A good fun day but we went away realising we had to learn more about manoeuvring boats around buoys.

Rowers involved were Pete, Geoff, Sarah, Elaine, Richard Gloster, Bob, Richard Aherne, Geraint, Lesley, Lynne, Nicki, Heather, Blacky, Si, Dafydd Tax, Lyndon & Molly, Holly & Gareth
We had a whip round during the Quiz night last night.

The event was organised and co-ordinated by Pete Hughes, so a big thank you to him and to the loan of 4 Concept 2 rowing machines from Pete, Dafydd, Dave & Ceinwen and the Leisure Centre. Also to a big thanks to Max for her contribution of her classic “Death by Chocolate” cake which was devoured throughout the evening by Carb starved rowers.
We had about seven kids on the machines during the evening which was great to see, all of them seemed to take it in their stride and one girl, Chloe, even managed an hour ! Sorry I’ve not mentioned all your names.
By 6am we’d covered about 403 km between us all but a few sessions had been missed off the ‘odometer’ list so the true distance was probably about 20 – 30 km more. Anyway, a great achievement and good preparation for the Celtic Challenge in May.
At last count the total was around £200 (final total to be announced) which is a fantastic contribution to some very worthy causes both at home and abroad.
I’m sure that some rowers who were new to ‘Ergo’ rowing have benefited from the experience as by the end we were all talking about ‘split times’, ‘ratings’ and how to get more power from the drive !
One thing we were all sure of though is that rowing in the boats is more fun but the machine certainly has it’s place in training, coaching new rowers and improving performance. I’m determined not to let mine return to it’s place as a towel rail !

Pete Hughes & Simon Pendrill

Head of the Taff Race, Cardiff 2012

Mens – 1st
Womens- 1st
Mixed – 1st & 2nd
A grand total of 15 medals!
The teams travelled to Cardiff Friday evening, stopping at the Little Chef (Little Thief), for an oven baked lasagne which was cooked in a microwave. After being locked in the Little Chef we managed to escape after a lot of faffing with the chef.
Once we arrived in Cardiff we deposited the boats in the very fancy, shiny yacht club and met up with a very thirsty Richard.
The teams were staying between Richard’s luxury apartment and the oh so simple Travel Lodge. Much to Bob’s dismay he found he was sharing a double bed with Geraint. Bob quotes “I don’t do double beds”. Reception kindly re-allocated another room with two single beds. Everything seemed good.
The team met up for a few pints and strolled back to the hotel. Much to our amusement the next day, we found that although Bob and Geraint had two sing beds they only had one duvet. Bob now does do double beds, or two singles pushed together!
We breakfasted together then headed to the yacht club where we found we looked quite miss-matched in our attire compared to the very sleek other teams. Numbers pinned on the bow boy and girl we rowed up the Taff for about 3 miles past the Millennium Stadium to the race start.
After a lot of clutching desperately to trees, or rather twigs to keep the boat stable, the race finally began. The boats left at 30 second intervals. The weather conditions were favourable, broken sunshine but a good wind at the mouth of the Taff made it a hard row at the end of the race. Both teams rowed well.

We had a lunch time break before commencing the mixed races, where to our amusement and with some concern to the poor rower due to sit behind him, Geraint downed a huge curry.
After a lot of banter and the usual faff of who was going in each boat, somebody decided on a strong winning A team and the leftovers in the B team boat.  The A team quickly grabbed the first number with the intention of over taking the B team pace setters. Unfortunately no one told the B team to stop. With grim determination stamped on their faces the B team had not become the A team rowing at a terrific pace down the Taff.  At the end of the race the former A team consoled themselves with a row around Cardiff Bay and drowned their sorrows with a free Cadwaladers ice Cream. Their excuse… Geraint had filled their bow with sand.
We had no idea of our racing positions, and waited with baited breath at the award ceremony. When the coastal categories were announced we were amazed and delighted to find that we had cleaned up completely having won every race we entered. The roof was lifted by Porthmadog’s cheers when we received a total of 15 medals.
We returned to our accommodation for showers and rest. Before showering Bob accidently pulled the so called red immersion cord and entered the shower. Stark naked and clutching his crown jewels he couldn’t understand why he was rudely disturbed by a blonde Polish woman closely followed by Geraint. A commotion followed as Bob had unfortunately pulled the emergency assistance alarm! He was most impressed by the rapid response.
After all the drama the team headed out for a celebration Italian meal. We discovered that Pippa had hidden talents as a black belt in origami and was able to create and model numerous napkin exotica. We admired from afar the giant Welsh rugby player Jamie Roberts. Leslie seemed to be rather a great fan of Jamie and as he was leaving the premises she leapt out of her seat and despite the height difference she tackled him and dragged him back to the rower’s table for a team photo.
We headed for further celebration beverages in various local hostelries. Half the team retired for a night cap of port and bed, whilst Nicola and Leslie strongly persuaded Bob and Geraint that a bit of dancing was in order. This was promptly followed by a visit to several night clubs where they strutted their stuff.
A triumphant, adventurous weekend was enjoyed by all.

An RYA one-day course was given in the Yacht Club.  We were shown how to resuscitate someone who had stopped breathing, how to put someone in the recovery position, how to deal with various types of injury and had discussions on the seamanship required.  The acronym DR ABC (Danger, response, airway, breathing, circulation) was a way to remember to deal with emergencies in a logical way.   We were rowers, kayakers and sailors and generously part of the course was funded by the Outdoor Partnership Initiative.

 

 

Because of awful weather on New Years Day this event was postponed until the 2nd January.  Nineteen of us turned up, 9 novices and the rest experienced rowers.  5 crews were assembled, one of which had the youngest rower at 9 and another the oldest rower at 80.  The wind once out of the trots was strong and it was touch and go whether some of the boats would make it far enough to round the buoy, one boat being blown quite a way off course.  The winning boat contained Katie, the 9-year old and was the final boat out.  By then wily Simon, coxing, had realised that hugging the coast was the best option.

 

A few hardy rowers, most in fancy dress, braved the appalling weather conditions before enjoying the indoor Christmas spirit.  They made it all the way to land at Borth y Gest.

November 5th at Portmerion

 

 

Fancy Dress Theme: What you wore when the ship went down

Place: Yacht Club Porthmadog

Winner, most improved female rower: Natasha
Winner, most improved male rower: Bob
Winner, fancy dress: Steph as a Tiller girl
Winner, most contribution to the club: Elaine – treasurer
Winner, most memorable comment: Maxine
(Good choice but we need more democracy)

Meal, courtesy of Sa and her team
Stilton and caulli soup
Chilli and rice
Choice of cheesecakes

Excellent

Music, courtesy of DJ Dave, our newly appointed Director of Music