Seven North Berwick crews took part in the "5 Miles from Home" challenge this year, more than any other club.  The challenge was first offered in 2020, at a time when rowers around the world were restricted in their ability to travel, and for some time even in their ability to row together.  The event is a 5 mile time trial, which can be undertaken on the crews home waters.  Rowers record their efforts for themselves, and produce  a screenshot of an app, which shows start and finish points (which must be reasonably close together so that crews row "out and back").  The app must also show that the distance rowed, of five miles or more, and the time taken.  The four North Berwick club crews were using our St Ayles Skiffs, and were also doubling up by using the challenge to record a time for the "Tiger Cup", an internal club competition, where crews are drawn at random, putting together club members with varied levels of experience all in the one crew.  

Crew NB tigers were the fastest Mixed St Ayles Skiff crew in the competition, coming 19th overall, and only beaten by one other mixed crew, who were rowing a Celtic Longboat.  Other mixed NB crews were Danskiffy (101st overall) and Crouching Tigers (36th over all).  Our all ladies crew "The Ace Racers" came in 63rd overall.  We are all now anxiously wating to see how the results recallibrate when the club handicap system is put into place to take account of gender and age, and also whether any of the other Tiger Cup crews get a good weather window to record their own times.

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 NB Tigers

5 miles from home is also a rare opportunity for club members with their own small boats to race those boats in the same competition as the skiffs.  This time round North Berwick were represented in a Teifi Skiff (Speedwell), a Hanningfield Skiff (Zev) and a Skur Pioneer (Euphame).  All were being rowed as double sculls (two rowers with two oars each).  Speedwell and Euphame also had a cox, Clive and Jo skilfully steered Zev using mirrors and differential pressure on the oars.  The Speedwell crew won the Teifi Skiff Class Association award.

Full results can be found on the Welsh Sea Rowing Website.

Give the 5 Miles from Home Challenge Facebook Page a Like, and have a look at all the photos from the 250 crews that entered the event, as well as getting notifications for next year's event.