Yealm Gig Rowing Club News Articles

Spring 2026 Update

Owen Moore — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 08:14:22 +0100

Charm’s Grand Debut Approaches
Our new boat, Charm, is nearly ready to make waves. While the official launch party is planned for May, some lucky locals might catch a glimpse of Charm during a short training session on the Yealm in early April before she heads off to the Isles of Scilly for the racing season.

It is hard to encapsulate just how exciting this moment is and the whole committee (and, I dare say, club) want to extend the greatest of thanks to every donor to Charm's build

Supporting the Club: Friend of Yealm Membership
For those who love watching the gigs but don’t row or cox, we will soon be launching the “Friend of Yealm” membership. For just £30 a year (gift-aidable), supporters can help keep the club thriving and enjoy being part of our vibrant community from the sidelines. Watch the club’s socials and theses updates for launch.

Social Media

Speaking of which - the club is now on Instagram. Follow @yealmgigs

Watch the World Pilot Gig Championships (1st-3rd May)
The jewel in the crown of the year’s racing takes place in the Isles of Scilly. If you’re interested in following the action, check out the gig racing on YouTube by searching “Gig Rower.” Our crews will be competing in several categories: Men’s Open, U25, Veteran, and Super Veteran, as well as Women’s Open, Veteran, and Masters divisions.

Looking Ahead to the European Championships
Mark your calendars for the upcoming European Championships. This is a new competition being held on the doorstep in Mount Edgecombe from the 2nd to the 5th of July. More info can be found by searching CPGA European championships.

Calling All Coxes — The Club Needs You!
Coxswains are truly the lifeblood of Yealm Rowing Club. We simply can’t row without them. To encourage more members to take up the helm, membership is now free for those who cox only, even if they don’t row. If you’ve ever fancied steering a gig and being at the heart of the team, now’s the perfect time to join us.

Owen Moore

Club Chair

May update - including World Championship results

Owen Moore — Wed, 14 May 2025 15:35:43 +0100

What an amazing weekend Yealm have had at the World Pilot Gig Championships in the Isles of Scilly. Five of our teams raced over the two days aiming to finish as highly placed as possible in the biggest event of the sport. We were gifted some dazzling sunshine but also some wicked winds and, on Saturday, the day of some longer races, some truly challenging seas. Local coxes from St Mary’s assured me that they had rarely been out in such difficult conditions and it is quite a thing to race while watching your boat slowly fill with water - the stretchers getting covered is probably not the best of signs. It was strongly rumoured that one of the other boats caught a fish on the row in.

Final positions were as follows;
Open (men’s) Vets - 18
Ladies Masters - 8
Open B - 91
Ladies A - 101
Open A - 21

All the crews and coxes put the work in to perform as well as they could and I’m sure the community have seen the boats out in all weathers over the winter. As such, it feels a little wrong to single out one crew, but I will. To come in the top 24 in these World Championships is a massive achievement and I do not know the last time the club did so well. It is worth noting that, in the B group of 12 boats, all except Wasp (1994) were launched in the new millennium and only one of those before 2010.

Thanks to Phil, Antonia, Pete for coxing; committee members for organising, Phil for helping with the boat on the island, St Mary’s gig club for the loan of Bonnet.

Videos of the races are available at the YouTube Gigrower channel. Look out for Wasp or, for Open B, Bonnet (who’s bottle green and was built in 1830).
If you only watch one race, make it the Open final.

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I have been slow with updates but before the Worlds we had some other great successes.

The South Devon Winter league wrapped up in Brixham on the 22nd of March. The ladies got to row in some pretty challenging seas before men and juniors were moved to a time-trial circuit around the harbour. As ever the juniors were the stars with our older team winning the day and the league. Our men’s A were pipped to a league win by a single point!

On the 12th of April the club raced at Dartmouth’s gig regatta. This is a longer course out to sea and is well attended by about nine other clubs. Our U16 team (made up of a majority of U14 girls) won the day and the U14s came second. We also picked up a trophy in the mixed competition.

The day after Dartmouth, on the same day as the Oxford v Cambridge Varsity race, we held the inaugural Noss v Newton boat race. Thanks to the support of our coxes, both the Swan and Dolphin Inns, a number of the club girls who ran the cake stall and the organisational skills of Beth McClements and Mairead McIntyre, we had a terrific evening of races. Perhaps for the best in terms of village harmony, the final result was draw with Noss winning junior and mixed races and Newton the men’s & women’s. Al Rooker has kindly shot and published a brilliant drone video. Hopefully we can do it all again in 2026.

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Other than for fun, the reason for the boat race was to start a period of fundraising. We’re first looking to purchase a new set of oars but are very keen to build funds and order a new boat. This will give our race teams an extra edge that our lovely but heavy and 40 year-old current boats cannot. Boat builders are also fairly local, master-craftsmen, so the money spent - around £30,000, will stay nearby.

Finally, the club is more-or-less at capacity at present with the limiting factor being our number of coxes. We would love to have more coxes to support our rowers. There are courses that can support coxing skills and the costs of these can be met by the club in the right circumstances. I know that some newer rowers have really enjoyed their beginners rows and it would be greta to continue to support this.

Please get in touch if you can help with coxing, committee, fundraising or simply want to donate.

Feedback on the club can be left here.

March Update

Owen Moore — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 15:56:14 +0000

It has been a cold, windy and wet start to the year but that has not stopped members from renewing their membership (thank-you all) and getting out on the water. I’m sure that I’m not alone in keenly waiting the arrival of longer and warmer days.

Racing still takes place at this time of year and the club has been to Teignmouth, Dartmouth and Queen Anne’s Battery. As is usual now we have had a full gamut of teams from U16 all the way up to supervets. Most importantly these days have been well-run and great fun but there have also been some wins with, as ever, the junior crew taking first place in Dart and Teign.

Club news

We remain very keen for more people to join the committee and share the load for organising the club. We are sadly losing Kathy Hudson from one of the secretarial roles and she deserves special thanks for her diligence and hard work. She has been amazingly organised and clearly planned and structured a list of the responsibilities and we’d like to have two people to continue her work. Please get in touch if you have any interest. You do not have to be a rower to help support a local club and charity which currently enables nearly 150 rowers from age 10 to 85 to keep active, be social and enjoy the beautiful environment.

Finally, I suspect that there are lots of good ideas for the club that aren’t heard. I have set up an anonymous feedback form that will send to the chair’s email address. The form is here.

Owen Moore (Chair)
ygrc.chair@gmail.com

Club feedback

Owen Moore — Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:00:24 +0000

If you want to give any feedback, ideas or volunteer - please do so here.

February 2025 news

Owen Moore — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 13:53:33 +0000

Club news

We remain very keen for more people to join the committee and share the load for organising the club. We are sadly losing Kathy Hudson from one of the secretarial roles and she deserves special thanks for her diligence and hard work. She has organised and planned the responsibilities and we’d like to have two people to continue the work. Please get in touch if you have any interest. You do not have to be a rower to help support a local club and charity which currently enables newly 150 rowers from age 10 to 85 to keep active, be social and enjoy the beautiful environment.

Finally, I suspect that there are lots of good ideas for the club that aren’t heard. I have set up an anonymous feedback form here. Look in the news section of our website for a link to the form.

AGM and summer update

Owen Moore — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 14:43:41 +0100

Apologies for the lack of updates through the summer but so many of the club were rowing hard in the River Yealm Regatta.

Race updates;
Since the beginning of the summer the club as a whole raced in Salcombe; we entered a masters team to Paignton; and the youth wing have had races in Hayle and Newquay.
Salcombe saw some great results all round but a special mention to the U16 squad for the only Yealm win of the day.
Paignton hosted the national Master’s event - a team from the club travelled up, competed hard across a number of races and had a fantastic time.
The national U14 championships are held in Hayle and we entered two teams, both with average ages well below the age threshold of the event. The final results saw the boats placing 13th and 15th out of a field of 25.
Newquay hosts the U16 competition and this is the first year in quite some time that Yealm have entered. The team did brilliantly and got through to the semi-finals, placing 8th overall.

Coming up:
Over the weekend of the 12-13th of October at Mount Batten are the Junior National and Junior County Championships respectively. Yealm will have several crews on the Saturday and, on the Sunday, Theo Serle has been selected for Devon U18 and Ted Warne for Devon U16. The club is very proud of them. Supporters will be very welcome.

AGM:

Finally, like last year, the club AGM will be held on the 22nd of November in Noss Village Hall at 7pm. There will be a number of committee posts up for grabs. Anybody with interest in the roles below please let me or Kathy Hudson (as club secretary) know.
Mike Chatt and Ella Edmondson will be formally standing for the two captain roles as they came into committee after the last AGM.
Barry Wolstenholme will be stepping down from Health & Safety, as will I from Chair.
Bob Jeffery will be standing for another tenure representing the Kitley Belles.

World Pilot Gig Championships 2024

Owen Moore — Wed, 01 May 2024 12:15:58 +0100

A reminder that this weekend we have multiple teams racing in the Isles of Scilly. We love to know there's support at home.

The Swan will be showing the action on the big screen (as, hopefully, will the Yacht Club).

At home look up gigrower on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/gigrower).

There are races on Fri/Sat/Sun (timetable here - https://www.wpgc.uk/race-timetable.html).

The club has Mens and Ladies - Supervets, Veterans, A & B open - racing in our very own Joker and Wasp.

END OF YEAR NEWSLETTER

Kathy Hudson — Thu, 21 Dec 2023 08:13:55 +0000

Newsletter: Yealm Gig Rowing Club.

December 2023.

As another year has flown by, here is a quick look back on some of the events and news from 2023.

The club has seen a fantastic growth in our junior rowing section, they have had some great results in various races throughout the year, a big thank you to Lizzie and James for their help with this area of the club.

We have had lots of interest in joining the club, with that in mind we have beginners rowing allocated to anyone wishing to try gig rowing. Dates for 2024 will be announced soon.

We have had new covers, boats painted, new radios, lifejackets, defibrillators and we will continue to update and maintain the kit we have going forward, new Junior oars are being collected this week.

As a club we offer a variety of rowing categories now, juniors, beginners, social rowing, open rowing, race training, kitley belles and masters training. Fitting all of these in is a challenge at times but we do want to make sure everyone who wants to can join in and row as much as possible.

We will be moving to a new communication system in 2024 and rows will be planned to accommodate all areas of the club.

The club has entered various regattas throughout the year, due to the success of our men’s crews we have been allocated a second gig for the world championships in the IOS next year, seeing both Joker and Wasp in the races will be fantastic.

The club is part of the Southwest Winter League, giving us an opportunity to race against other clubs pre the IOS. As we cannot host a large event Beth and other committee members are hoping we can organise a fun mini regatta inviting clubs to join us for some racing in the river next spring. Watch this space!

The club has had great fun attending the races, we are the loudest supporters, everyone is always grateful for Sue’s cakes after a race. A big thank you to Sue who also fund raises for the club selling her cakes. We also have our newest youngest supporter baby Theo Maguire.

We also became a charity, thank you Owen for all your hard work behind the scenes and this will improve club fund raising opportunities going forward.

Beth and Mairead organised a superb Xmas Party and it was lovely to see the juniors attend and enjoy the celebration.

Overall, a great year to look back on, how lucky we are to row in the Yealm.

Finally, a big thank you to the committee, coxswain, race captains and others who support Yealm Gig Rowing Club.

The committee would like to wish you all a very Happy Xmas and here is to a successful 2024.

Best wishes Kathy

AGM 2023

Owen Moore — Thu, 09 Nov 2023 10:34:36 +0000

This year's AGM will be in Noss Village Hall on Wednesday the 22nd of November at 7.30.

We hope to see as many people as possible and expect a fairly busy agenda.

Agenda:

Chair's welcome and summary (Owen Moore)
Racing summaries from captains (Nikki McClements & Dan Furlong)
Junior Section update
Treasurer's update (Simon Johns)
Election of trustees (i.e. committee members)
- Formally all members step down as per charity commission rules
- For a number of posts the current incumbent has served less than three years and is happy to continue the role but we welcome volunteers to step forward for all posts.
- The membership secretary and treasurer are stepping back and we absolutely need volunteers for those roles please.
Election of honorary members - Jan Leonard and Chris Matthews
2024 season fees
Update on Noss Land proposal
AOB

Please send AOB or expression of interest in roles in advance to club secretary (secretary.yealmgigclub@gmail.com) though both can be done on the day.

See below the most current financial information for the club (in keeping with charity commission rules).

Accounts 2022

TAMAR CHALLENGE 2023

Kathy Hudson — Thu, 02 Nov 2023 11:19:22 +0000

Tamar Challenge

This endurance challenge hosted by Cotehele Quay Gig Club, saw 20 crews take on this gruelling river race. Well done to all those taking on the challenge and congratulations to Yealm who secured the fastest time in 1 hour, 4 minutes and 31 seconds - ouch!

Yealm
Boscastle and Crackington
Bude

Photo credit: Christopher Dean