Woodbridge Coastal Rowing Club
Exploring the river Deben and beyond
This year, the AGM was held at The Bull Hotel in Woodbridge, with over half of the club members attending.
We followed the business section with a lovely meal and social in the newly refurbished pub. We will definitely go back next year.
Thanks go to the outgoing and incoming Committees who seamlessly run the club by working hard behind the scenes to keep everyone happy and the boats well maintained.
On Sunday, both skiffs were out on the water. The crews included two people having a taster session alongside our regular members. It was good to see the Felixstowe Rowing Club on a long trip up to Woodbridge.
It was surprisingly warm for an October day, but no one was complaining!
Anyone from the shore would have seen both boats enjoying some banter at the bottom of Martlesham Creek. The Whisstock crew made do with a quick KitKat but the Whisper crew had quite a picnic. No need to guess which of the two boats made it home first!
Great fun!
We joined this last year and launched both Whisstock and Whisper again to show a presence again this year.
It’s a good exercise in boat handling and is also encouraging to prove that those enjoying our river don’t leave a lot of rubbish.
Once again, we covered the area from the DYC to the top of Martlesham Creek armed with litter pickers and plastic bags.
Kyson Point provided the star items of a golf ball and a yellow plastic duck with a few bits and bobs over the rest of our pitch.
All items, including the litter pickers, were returned to the Scout Hut at the Tide Mill.
An enjoyable morning!
The event organised by Adrian Hodge from CRAB, Coastal Rowing at Blakeney was originally scheduled and postponed during Covid. The event was held Monday to Friday and covered the rivers and broads between Hickling and Coltishall.
The base was Barton Turf Adventure Centre, where many camped or stayed nearby at various locations of their choice. Twelve skiffs attended from six clubs these included five St. Ayles skiffs from Blakeney, Kings Lynn and Woodbridge and Adrian’s rather fine Thames skiff, well over 100 years old.
The boats were left overnight at various pre-arranged locations, parish staithes, boatyards and yacht clubs. Adrian’s organisation of the whole event was meticulous, particularly in getting crews back and forth to the boats.
An itinerary for each day was produced, together with maps and suggested points to visit. Most of our rowing was thus in the company of just a few boats, with a few more meeting up at the obvious lunch spots. A mud weight was provided, as the Broads Authority does not like anchors, and this was useful at lunchtime in the broads.
We had two evening events, a barbeque at BTAC and a ceilidh in Neatishead Village Hall with an excellent band and food.
We finished the event rowing back to Wroxham Broad, where the Norfolk Broads Yacht Club have good facilities for getting the boats back on their trailers.
A lovely week, well organised and some lovely rivers and Broads.
On 10 September, the WCRC joined the Transition Woodbridge event to help remove litter from the river.
Whisper and Whisstock were both fully crewed and spent time at Kyson Beach and Martlesham Creek pulling all manner of things out of the river.
At the end of the outing, the rubbish retrieved was added to the heap outside the 5th Woodbridge Sea Scouts ready for collection by Norse on Monday.
A job well done
On the 2 May, we proudly launched our second St Ayle’s Skiff onto the river Deben.
Big thanks go to Brian East, who managed the building project and took the stroke seat for her first outing. Thanks also go to Julian Taylor who played a big role in her construction and other committee members who all played their part.
‘Whisper’ was joined by our first boat ‘Whisstock’ on the water for an afternoon of short trips followed by lots of tea and cake. Crews switched in and out for a quick blast through the cut and past Kyson Beach while there was enough tide.
Rather than using the traditional champagne, Brian was handed a bottle of ‘Proper Job’ to make the occasion (which he promptly finished off when his turn to row ended).
It was a lovely afternoon, and a format that we will repeat.
An interesting paddle for the crew as high tide prediction was 4.0m, but the actual tide was 4.85m. Nearly 3ft over predicted, on top of a 4.0m spring tide. This is possibly the highest viewpoint we will ever get from the river.
However, we would still be on the wrong side of Wilford bridge now if we had carried on, not much head room!.
Therefore the return to the sailing club was a good choice and thanks all for the row. Julian
Wednesday 21st July 2021
When we launched at 8.30 am all was cool and peaceful on the river. Simon took us down to the Tips and by then we were very glad of the shade provided for our coffee break. Caro brought us back upriver to the DYC slipway which by then was surrounded by noisy teenagers enjoying swimming in the Deben. It was heartening to see them all move away as soon as we approached… two lads brought our trailer down to us and a group of girls offered to help with getting the skiff loaded. The welcome was as warm as the day had become! And for once Julian was able to row for the complete trip!
Monday 14th June 2021
A hot day for rowing down to the Hams. We were all glad of Fiona’s encouragement to take our swimming gear so we could cool off in the river before drying out on the shore as we enjoyed a well earned tea break. For some of us it was our first ever swim in our river – Fiona does it daily!
Unfortunately, we have no photos to verify this but John did take a beautiful shot of Julian retrieving our anchor. How fortunate we are to have our skiff and our river.
June 19th 2021
Although we planned a lovely summer evening row on Friday 18th, the weather didn’t play ball so we avoided the wind and rain in favour of much nicer conditions on Saturday evening and took a trip beyond Wilford Bridge. As ever we scared the tourists on the far side when yodelling as loud as we could to get the echo to resonate and expand.
Rather than make crumbs in the boat we went to the kayak and paddle boarders beech on the Sutton Hoo bank to eat our lemon drizzle cake and leave messages in the sand to show that we can get to the beach too!
We didn’t have enough stones to spell ‘skiff’ so we settled with ‘gig’.
