Putney Town Rowing Club

This year saw members from across PTRC’s men’s squads descend upon The Blue Anchor in Hammersmith. This riverside location provided the back drop for a fantastic festive shindig. The Blue Anchor has played host to PTRC parties in the past and were well prepared for the level of boisterous behaviour that ensued!

With the civilised(?!) three course meal out of the way, attention soon turned to the variety of small gifts given to each of the guests on arrival, these ranged from a gyroscope to help improve wrist strength (useful for strengthening that feathering arm!) to modelling balloons which were subsequently moulded into many different shapes – all of which were very…imaginative…

A further highlight of the evening was a rendition of ‘we all row in a yellow submarine’ a tribute to a recent, unfortunate incident involving an Empacher 8+, a cruiser causing a HUGE amount of wake and some very soggy rowers! Happily, all involved were unharmed aside from being a bit wet and cold! The song was expertly led by men’s captain John Hickling on acoustic guitar however I’m sorry to report that the singing was anything but expert! Stick to rowing lads!

Many of the party goers continued the fun in Citizen Smith in Putney where the festive cheer continued to flow amid some interesting dance moves (I use the word ‘dance’ loosely).

Apart from the odd sore head the next day and a few lost personal belongings, the night was a storming success and has put all of us very much in the festive spirit. Next up it’s the PTRC girls turn to paint the town a festive shade of red on Friday followed by the PTRC presidents’ cheese and wine party happening on Saturday 10th December open to all PTRC members and their friends and families. Merry Christmas from us all at PTRC.

Words by Nick.

Open Day for all experienced rowers and coxes – both male and female - interested in joining Putney Town for the 2011-12 season

Saturday September 10th 2011 at 11am

Are you looking for a rowing club in London and have previous rowing or coxing experience?

As the ‘friendliest Club on the Tideway’, Putney Town welcomes experienced coxes, oarsmen and oarswomen to an Open Day on Saturday, September 10th, at 11am.

The day is an opportunity for you to see Putney Town’s facilities, to meet our rowers and coaches and to learn about the Club’s history and activities. The Open Day is also an opportunity for us to get a feel for your level and ambition so that were you to join the Club, we can match you with the appropriate squad.

We will meet at 11am in the main hall of the boathouse (upstairs) and based on numbers you may be going on the water.

If you will be attending, please register your interest by sending an email to Ben menscaptain@putneytownrc.co.uk (for men) and Elizabeth womenscaptain@putneytownrc.co.uk (for women).

Please bring kit for water or indoor training, a water bottle and wellies (you can borrow wellies at the Club if you don’t have any at hand).

To learn about our squads, please visit the Squad sections on our website.

Any questions in the meantime, please contact Elizabeth McLoughlin, Women’s Captain or Ben Burston, Men’s Captain.

Putney Town has been running learn to row courses for over five years and is please to announce that we will be running another course for Men starting in May 2011.

We’re looking for men wishing to train and compete for the club for the course which will cost £100 and run for 6 weeks with both land and water sessions included. Once the course is finished, the group will join the novice mens racing squad.

An open day will be held early in May 2011, which gives interested guys and opportunity to come and see the club, try out the equipment and speak with recent graduates of past learn to row course.

If you are interested, you can find our more details on the learn to row page, or simply sign up and we’ll contact you with details of the open day. If you have any other questions, please contact Peter Rossi on learntorow@putneytownrc.co.uk.

The various different squads will be holding their season kick-off meetings in the coming few days, to discuss the coming season, aims and ambition and to postpone doing an ergo for one more evening.

The meeting is for all those returning from the summer break, and we welcome all experienced rowers who are choosing a London based rowing club to attend or are considering trying out another club.  We have active groups for all levels of rowing (including an active veteran men’s group) so you are sure to find one group suits your level.

Meetings are as follows:

• Men – both senior men and intermediate men: 8pm Tuesday 14th September
• Senior Women: 8pm Wednesday 15th September (7:15 for existing club members)
• Intermediate Women: 8pm Monday 20th September
• Veteran Men: Sunday 19th September at 12:30pm

Enquiries should be directed to

• menscaptain@putneytownrc.co.uk
• womenscaptain@putneytownrc.co.uk
• veteranmen@putneytownrc.co.uk

Note that this is aimed at those who already row. For details of our Learn to Row courses, please see the notice about open days.

This year, a three boat contingent prepared for qualifiers at HRR in the Wyfolds and Thames Challenge Cups. The weeks leading up to early July were busy with the usual trialling, crew re-organisation, crew debilitation and (most importantly) much banter. But it was all worth it. Our Thames VIII crew pre-qualified, a first for PTRC, shortly followed by composite double that didn’t have to qualify, and then the Wyfolds IV- delivered a strong performance to match their form in the multi-lanes and qualified from a huge field. This then gave us the best part of a week paddling the course in the evening sunshine before the regatta started.

The draw was less kind. Wednesday of HRR first brought up the Wyfolds IV- against Muckross, a seeded bunch from Ireland. After some competitive steering off the island Muckross, took an early lead; one from which PTRC would not recover.

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The PTRC Men’s Senior Squad is holding their beginning of the season squad meeting on Tuesday, 14 September at 8pm in the club bar.

We welcome all experienced rowers who are considering trying out another club or choosing a London based rowing club to attend. We will discuss our goals for the coming season which includes building upon the successes of last season such as our results in The Eights Head of the River.

Any email enquiries should be directed to the men’s vice captain Matt Bartoldus at menscaptain@putneytownrc.co.uk

The Putney Town men and women’s squads this year visited beautiful Brive la Gaillard in Bordeaux, France for its annual training camp in perfect rowing conditions. The venue and training facilities proved a success. The camp was conditioning both squads for the competitive season with races in regattas such as Wallingford, Metropolitan, Marlow and Reading. The men’s squad is looking to qualify again this year for the Thames Cup 8 at Royal Henley and the women focus on success at Henley Women’s Regatta and the National Championships.

Putney Town entered two crews in the Head of the River Race 2010 and both had great performance with one in the top one hundred and the other crew less than four seconds behind!

Crew	Status	Position	Finish Time
180 - Putney Town I	IM2	92	18:45.77
340 - Putney Town II	IM3	107	18:49.35

Congratulations to both crews – either equalling or bettering the best club performance in recent years.

The first race of 2010 (that wasn’t cancelled due to poor weather) took place at the weekend, and we had good representation, and some notable success.

Mens IM3	23rd	12:37.8	(5th in Category, fastest club crew in category)
Mens IM2	24th	12:39.6	(6th in Category, 2nd fastest club crew)
Wms IM3	50th	13:40.7	(Category winners IM3 or IM2)
Wms IM2	66th	14:17.1	(6th in category)

Well done to the girls – retaining the IM3 pennant for the 3rd year.

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Putney Town had a good turnout for the race that is for many the first significant race of the Head season.

The weather before the race had looked like truly epic head weather, with the wind whipping up the water and some predicting some involuntary swimming sessions. However, the tide turned and things calmed down a lot much to the relief of all the participants.

The club was well represented and had some good results:-

Category	Pair	Finish Position
IM2.2-	Mcloughlin/Dwyer	16th of 30
IM2.2-	Bartoldus/Halliday	19th
IM2.2-	Walkley/Lovejoy	23rd
Mx.VetB/C 2x	Pictor/Holmes-Siedle	7th
Vet B/C 2x	Marengo/De Maria	8th
Vet D/E 2-	Martensson/Green	4th
VetB.2-	Toussaint/Lloyd-Davis	5th
VetF.2x	Adams/Cowell	9th
W.IM1.2-	Tyldesley/Wells	6th
W.IM2.2-	Smith/Bartlett	5th
W.IM3.2x	Mcloughlin/Fairley	6th of 33
W.IM3.2x	Charles/Nilsson	9th

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