Douglas writes: On the 9th July 2021, five QRC members took part in the SCRA “5 Miles From Home” event, using Ferry Maid.
This event was one of a series organised to give some competitive rowing in the absence of a Castle to Crane race this year.
Crews were invited to enter in a variety of craft, and were sorted into age categories. A crew was assembled from the Men’s 60+ squad, in the M50+ category. (No 60+ category being available unfortunately.)
Each crew had to row a five mile course in their home waters. The course had to be “out and back”, or approximately circular, starting and finishing in roughly the same place, to minimise any local tidal advantage. The row had to take place between the 9th and 11th July, and the result recorded using Strava or similar and submitted to the organisers by 1pm on the 11th.

The team had done extensive research, and with assistance from John H., had mapped a course which gave the required length. A short series of test/training rows was carried out, firstly to check that the course was actually the right length, and then to set some times. Training rows recorded times of 53:00 minutes, and 53:12 minutes.
For the first race day on the 9th July, conditions were not as favourable as expected, but a good time of 53:55 minutes was achieved despite the Inchgarvie sector being particularly lumpy and challenging. (Lots of air rowing) The forecast was looking worse for the next day, so the recorded time was accepted as the one which would be submitted.

Once the results were published, an analysis of the spreadsheet showed that the crew achieved the following:
25th out of 139 entries in all classes.
9th out of 36 St Ayles skiffs entered.
3rd out of 4 M50+ St Ayles Skiffs entered.
So, the headline is we came 3rd in our class, and were ahead of many open category St Ayles crews.
Congratulations to Alan Sutherland, Alistair Sturrock, Alan Duch, and Keith Thomson for keeping up an excellent pace in difficult conditions, while I just had to steer and make sure I didn’t accidentally stop the time recording before the five miles were completed. That wouldn’t have gone down well….
