Tamar and Tavy Gig Club at The Great River Race
When you think of a marathon, running comes to most people’s minds, but not for the members of gig rowing clubs. For them London’s Great River Race has become an annual highlight - a gruelling 21.6 miles up the River Thames from the Docklands to Ham in Surrey. Over 300 craft take part in a truly international event. The Dutch are always out in force but this year there were teams from Bermuda, Kuwait, Ireland and of course a strong contingent from Devon and Cornwall including Tamar and Tavy Gig Club.
Like any marathon it begins with months of training, steadily building up to three-hour rowing sessions. Then the pinnacle of organisational logistics transporting three 33-foot-long Cornish pilot gigs by road to London and across the capital. The rules state that a large flag, the rowers and a passenger must be carried. This means it quickly becomes a carnival as well as a race with lots of fancy dress, an oompah band on a passenger boat and of course teams with silly names - Tamar and Tavy sent the ‘ladies who launch’, a super-vet women’s crew, with cox Dave sporting a ‘ladies’ man’ logo, a mixed team ‘A Mad Navy Tart’ - anagram of Tamar and Tavy of course - and a bunch of guys from Lifton who had never rowed before but took up the challenge to raise funds for motor neurone disease.
Spectators lined every bridge cheering ‘oggi, oggi, oggi!’ and urging on the gigs, Tamar, Ginette and Iron Maid. This year as gig Tamar passed Fulham football club the crowd roared - we like to think it was for us. Finally we passed Kew Bridge and then on to the finish canon and a welcome drink at The White Swan pub where the tide laps into the beer garden and the crews quaff a pint, up to their knees in water. The rowers all say ‘never again’ as they nurse blisters in unmentionable places, but they always seem to be back every year for just one more go.
www.tamarandtavygigclub.co.uk