Gig Rowing

It seems Falmouth Pilot Gig Club, which Tim Koch wrote about earlier in January, has had a great season, ending it by racing in Holland. Read about that competition and the race in Holland here. On the same note Annabel Vernon, member of Great Britain Rowing Team, wrote the other day about her first outing in a Cornish pilot gig on her BBC blog. This was her first try in this boat type, although she is a Cornishwoman. Fun stuff, read it here.

The Revival Of Cornish Pilot Gig Racing 2

Here Tim Koch continues his story from yesterday about his visit to Falmouth Gig Club in Cornwall.

On a very cold day shortly before Christmas I appeared unannounced at Falmouth Gig Club. Founded in 1985, it is one of the top clubs, and the women have won the World Championships ten times. I found the men’s ‘A’ crew about to go out. Their captain, Fergus Muller, invited me to join them and pointed me towards the ‘pilot’s seat’ in the bow of the gig Energy. The cox was his wife, Amelia, herself a champion rower.


All my previous rowing experience had been with fine outrigged boats with sliding seats so I was very interested to find out the differences. Like all rowing when it is done well, the crew made it look easy. Energy moved fast and true, untroubled by the choppy water of Falmouth Harbour (which, including Carrick Roads, is the third largest natural harbour in the world and a fine training ground).









Fergus shows the catch.








Fergus shows the finish.

The real test came when they tolerated me taking over the bow seat for a few minutes. I was slightly overdressed in a tweed jacket and duffle coat but I slipped my brogues under the foot straps and received some quick instructions. The outside hand is held in an underhand grip and the inside hand is close to it. I was told that there was a way of using the legs at the catch despite the fixed seat but that proved too advanced for me. Against all my fine boat training, I was effectively told to ‘lean away from the work’ at the finish. Sadly, this part came easily to me. The wooden Macon oars had no button to stop them sliding through the pins and I found it difficult to keep the blade square at the catch. The result was several crabs as I (quickly) tired but at least there were no ‘boat stoppers’ or broken tholes. I soon handed back my oar and resumed my role as deadweight.

On the return leg the crew showed me a burst of speed. I had read that a very fast gig can do eight knots and I now believe it. These clinker boats may look heavy compared to a sleek plastic four or eight but they do not feel it when rowed properly. A coxswain’s eye view of a Rock Gig Club crew rowing is here. A view from the pilot’s seat of a Bristol crew rowing is here. It also shows an ‘oar toss’, used to make a quick turn.

In Britain, fine boat rowing still has an image problem because of its Oxbridge / Henley / private school connotations. Not so with gig rowing. To quote The Times, in thirty years Cornish Gig Racing has gone from ‘… a moribund sport…… to a thriving competitive pastime, claimed now to be the fastest-growing community sport in the West Country……’ Those of us who are evangelical about rowing must applaud all those who made and continue to make this happen. As they say in Cornwall when something merits approval, “Proper Job”!

Many warm thanks to Tim for a very interesting report!

The Revival Of Cornish Pilot Gig Racing 1

The always reliable and alert HTBS correspondent Tim Koch in London did not only relax during his Christmas holidays in Cornwall, he had a promise to keep, so here is the first part of his story about Cornish pilot gig racing. Tim writes,

My entry of 30th November on inrigged rowing in Britain today ended with the afterthought that I should have included something on the thriving sport of Cornish Pilot Gig racing and the promise that I would write something after spending Christmas in my native county, Cornwall. Now, thanks to the generous hospitality of Falmouth Gig Club, I am able to bring a first hand report.

The county of Cornwall forms the tip of the south western peninsula of England. It is bordered to the west and north by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the English Channel and to the east by the River Tamar. Naturally, it has a strong maritime tradition. In Cornwall the prevailing winds come from the south west so it is easier to row a boat to windward than to sail it and this led to the development of the Cornish Pilot Gig, a coxed, fixed seat, six oared, clinker built rowing boat. It is built of narrow leaf elm and modern boats are all 32 feet (9.8m) long with a beam of 4 feet 10 inches (1.47m). The gunwales are too thin to support rowlocks so tholes or ‘pins’ are used. One of each pair of pins is ‘hard’ (to act as a fulcrum for the oar) and one is ‘soft’ (designed to break in the event of ‘catching a crab’). Gigs are light, buoyant and manageable in heavy seas. As the name suggests, their principal use was to carry ‘pilots’ out to incoming vessels so that they could use their local knowledge to guide ships through dangerous or congested waters. The fastest gig got their man on board first and so won the pilotage fee. Thus, gig racing was born.

When engines replaced sails and oars, interest in racing these boats declined but the sport clung on in Newquay (on the north Cornish coast) and in the Isles of Scilly (28 miles / 45 km west of Cornwall). However, by the 1980s, gig races and the few remaining boats were in danger of dying out. This was changed largely through the efforts of a remarkable local man, Ralph Bird. He triggered a revival by three courses of action. Firstly, Bird organised races. Secondly, he formed the Cornish Pilot Gig Association (CPGA) to see that future gigs were built to an agreed standard and to set the rules of racing. Thirdly, he (eventually) built 29 new gigs with his own hands. The ‘standard’ boat was to be based on the Treffry, built in 1838 and still owned by Newquay Rowing Club. A new boat costs nearly £20,000 ($31,200) and now the two principal boat builders are Hunkins and Nobbs.

Today there are over 50 clubs (owning over 130 boats between them) affiliated to the CPGA. They are mostly from Cornwall but some are from other parts of the UK. There are also clubs in France, the Netherlands, Australia, the Faroe Islands and the USA. Over 7,000 people take part in gig racing at more than 300 regattas around the South West each summer and the ‘World Championships’ are held every May in the Isles of Scilly. The numbers are growing all the time.

To be continued tomorrow...