The London Great River Race is always a popular date in A.R.C.'s calendar and is not to be missed.

  The annual, spectacular boat race is a wonderful event to be part of and experience 21.6 miles of rowing on a river amongst many different 'fixed seat' crafts - propelled by oars or paddles - and always carrying a passenger.  Although competitive for some, it is always a great, fun and colourful day for all on the river Thames. 

As a club we have been taking part for many years , and this year we sent two teams down to London - a men's team of Kevin, Tom, James, Matt , Ian and Jake, and a mixed team of Rhian, Izzy, Mark, Ellie, Peter and Neil.

Men's captain Kevin said," After another successful season of racing we wanted to finish the year by entering the G.R.R. again and hopefully bring back the trophies we won last year, with a mixed team instead of a ladies team this year.

However, training for the river race this year has proved challenging due to some extremely difficult rowing conditions lately.  Nevertheless, both teams have trained hard at every opportunity, and this showed in our results.

Finally the G.R.R. was approaching. The boats were prepared and finetuned by Ian, ensuring they were in great shape for race day and the teams loaded the boats ready for Tom- who once again stepped up to do the towing- and we were ready to go!

There were about 300 boats competing on race day, so, because of the vast numbers of boats, there is always a staggered start.  Our numbers were called - our mixed team not far behind the men- and off we went- full speed ahead!

It wasn't long before we started passing other boats and that's when I knew we would do well!

The condiions were good this year and after hard rowing from the team, the finish line was in sight for us.

Jake, in stroke position, took us strongly over the line and we finished first in our class again this year, in a time of 2 hours 30 minutes and were 7th overall, which is great achievement.

 We then watched our mixed team crossing the line in a time of 2 hours, 48 minutes - a brilliant result too- first mixed team and fifth Celtic longboat out of 29, and 25th overall.

As men's captain I'd like to thank both teams for their outstanding performances in the G.R.R. 

It is a wonderful experience to be rowing under London's bridges and to be part of this spectacle of over 2,500 competitors competing for 37 trophies in such a colourful, enjoyable and prestigious event.

Aberdyfi Rowing Club has once again performed brilliantly this year - so a big thankyou to all our rowers for training so hard throughout the year.

Lets keep the momentum up - roll on next season!"