The Great River Race

The 20th Great River Race takes place on the River Thames on Saturday 8 September. This unique race is open to any traditional style, coxed boat, propelled by a minimum of four oars or paddles, without sliding seats or riggers who race over a 22 mile stretch of the Thames from Richmond in Surrey to Island Gardens in Tower Hamlets, opposite the Cutty Sark at Greenwich.

Around 300 boats and crews will be taking part this year competing for prizes in 35 different classes from overall winner and fastest through junior, senior and mixed crews. Every boat is handicapped to give all entrants a chance of winning, this is done using using naval architects calculations and a sophisticated computer programme. Those boats rated the slowest start the race first, those rated the fastest will go at the end of the staggered start and each boat is individually timed.

All types and styles of boat have been entered over the years including an Hawaiian outrigger war canoe, a Viking longboat, a Norwegian scow, a Canadian C-8 canoe, a Chinese dragonboat, Cornish pilots and gigs, skiffs, cutters, naval whalers, a replica 54′ bronze age Greek galley, canvas and tar Irish naomhogs, and the world’s oldest racing rowing boat, the Royal Oak built in Co. Down, Northern Ireland at the start of the 20th century. Participants are pretty diverse as well with crews coming from the US, Canada, Holland, Sweden, France, Germany, Ireland as well as the UK.

The race starts around 1pm just up river from Richmond and Twickenham bridges in West London with the boats expected to take around 3-4 hours to complete the course. Afterwards they’ll be an awards ceremony and after race party.

It should be pretty easy to get a good view of the race along the course, it passes under around 20 bridges along the way including Chiswick, Barnes, Hammersmith, Putney, Wandsworth, Battersea, Albert, Chelsea, Vauxhall, Lambeth, Westminster, Waterloo, Blackfriars, Southwark, London and Tower bridges, so there should be good vantage points.