ROWING
The Port of Dartmouth Royal Regatta rowing is at the absolute core of our Royal Regatta. The first recorded Regatta held on the River Dart at Dartmouth in 1822 was noted to include a rowing race for six-oared gigs ‘for which Dartmouth is very famous’ – according to the Exeter Flying Post. Rowing was then and still is, fiercely competitive and the highlight of the calendar for many visitors and locals.
Our Royal Regatta has become a ‘Mecca’ for rowing enthusiasts with its wide variety of rowing. Whaler and cadet blue boats provide the attraction for local participants; fine boat rowing attracts crews from the south west and along the south coast to the final regatta of the West of England ARA ten regatta championship series; pilot gig rowing attracts the Cornish gig fraternity; Coastal Rowing introduced into the Regatta in 2021 provides courses of 8 and 6 kilometres out to sea and back for clubs of the Coastal Rowing League; and initiated in 2022 there is now a programme of Seine Boat Rowing. New this year is Dragon Boat Racing.
Conditions for all of these multiplicities of rowing are ideal in helping to present a sporting excellence over eight days of the regatta.
The Regatta Sports Programme will be printed nearer to the Regatta with the complete details of races but do also buy a Regatta Souvenir Programme which features everything the Regatta has to offer.
LOCAL ROWING
In 1989 seven whalers in GRP/carbon fibre, based on the Yealm Crabber, much lighter than the old naval whaler borrowed from the Britannia Royal Naval College, were commissioned and sponsored by local businesses and organisations. This is where a new chapter started. Our Regatta whalers and cadet blue boats always make a very impressive, colourful sight for spectators, and are unique to Dartmouth.
Heats will take place on the Sunday and Monday before the official Port of Dartmouth Royal Regatta starts, with the finals on Regatta Friday. The prize giving takes place on the Friday evening when you will see the Royal Avenue Gardens tightly packed with people waiting to hear the results and to see the winning crews receive their trophies! There may be a few beers involved…
* Programme detail to follow …
Coastal Rowing
Seine Boat Rowing
The Regatta Seine Boat Rowing with the support of the River Dart Rowing Club.
Traditional River Teign Seine Boats are seventeen feet long and clinker built with English Elm bottoms and larch topsides. They were propelled by oars or sails and were usually named after the owner’s mother or wife.
Modern day Seine boat racing was started by Shaldon Regatta in the 1970s as part of the Dawlish to Shaldon rowing race. Wooden seine boats were borrowed from local fishermen, often for the cost of a bottle of something strong, and temporarily modified to be rowed by four people with a cox to steer.
In the early 1990s a somewhat bleary discussion in The Ferryboat Inn between several of the Shaldon Regatta committee, a boatman from Teignmouth, and a boat builder came up with the idea to build some boats in glass fibre……low and behold they remembered the conversation! And the first three boats were built, two for Shaldon Regatta and one for the boat builder.
WEST OF ENGLAND AMATEUR ROWING ASSOCIATION CHAMPIONSHIPS
The Port of Dartmouth Royal Regatta hosts the final Regatta of the West of England ARA’s ten Regatta Championship series and it is a much-loved part of our Royal Regatta. This year it will be held on Thursday 28th August.
Categories include eights, coxed fours, coxed quadruple sculls, double sculls and single sculls, mainly over a 1,000 metre course between the Higher and Lower Ferries
The nine other regattas that make up the Championship series are Appledore & Instow, Bideford, Exeter, Falmouth, Paignton, Plymouth, Torquay, Totnes and Wimbleball.
PILOT GIG RACING
The pilot gig is a six-oared rowing boat clinker built of narrow leaf elm 32 feet (9.8 m) long with a beam of 4 feet 10 inches (1.47 m).
It is recognised as one of the first shore-based lifeboats that went to vessels in distress, with recorded rescues going back as far as the late 17th century. The original purpose of the pilot gig was as a general work boat, and the craft was used as a pilot boat taking pilots out to incoming vessels off the Atlantic Coast.
The Pilot Gig Race will take place on Saturday 23rd August 2025. .. more details to follow.
dragon boat racing
NEW for 2025!
(Appledore Style)
Wednesday, 27th August, 2025, at 10 a.m.
This is a NEW EVENT is for crews of ten and a coxswain. Britannia Royal Naval College is kindly loaning two plastic pilot gigs and Appledore & Instow Regatta are loaning the specially made paddles. The coxswain will be provided with a drum to beat out the rhythm for the crew. The course will be offshore from the Ship in Dock Inn to off the Dartmouth Yacht Club.
The format is based on the popular and successful adaptation of Dragon Boat Racing held at Appledore & Instow Regatta.
The event is open to all. The entry fee is £5 per seat and applies to all entries (£50 per crew). There is no charge for coxswains although he/she may be immersed in water by their crew after the race if he/she gets the beat wrong!
In this first year let’s all have fun. Crews of male, female, mixed and youngsters (14 to 18 with parental approval) all accepted.
Photographs from Appledore Instow Regatta Dragon Boat racing 2024.. reproduced by kind permission of Regatta Secretary Peter Reveley and Photographer Steven Curtis
Sponsored by: ECO LAUNDRY, Dartmouth
