A new boat for Boscastle’s 15th anniversary

Despite 2020 being a virtual write off for racing – those couple of Winter League meetings squeezed in at the start of the year seem a century ago now – Boscastle have managed to celebrate their 15^th anniversary in memorable style with a new boat.

On Sunday a small team travelled down to Peter Williams’ boatyard at Bodinnick to take on the notoriously difficult job of getting the boat out of his shed, not helped by the heavy rain of the day before. We arrived on the Fowey side of the river in time to see one of their crews go out for their Sunday morning training, and sparking a bit of trailer envy over our brand new Chapman boat trailer, donated to the club by Chapman Machinery in a generous sponsorship deal. Peter came to pick us up from the Fowey side and took us across the water in his boat to Bodinnick.

Only one member of the team, Pete Feehan, was present in 2006 when we collected our original boat from Peter, and he was able to confirm it hadn’t got any easier with time. After some challenging manoeuvres, we got Torrent out into the sunshine and Peter towed her back across the river to Fowey where she was loaded up for her journey back to Boscastle.

In traditional fashion, we arranged the local vicar to bless the boat for us, but trying to organise not holding an event in these covid conscious times while wanting our members and the village to be able to see the new boat in all her glory was quite a task. There were facemasks galore and lots of warnings about social distancing and busyness in the harbour, and there was a very warm welcome for our new boat in the village.

Her name Torrent is after the flash floods in 2004 which hit both Boscastle and Crackington, and devastated the lower village and harbour area. The gig club was founded in the aftermath of this incident and it felt important to honour the heritage of our club with keeping Torrent as the name of our top racing boat.

Thanks to a strong onshore wind and rough seas, it was too dangerous to launch even inside the harbour, so the blessing took place at the water’s edge, followed by a speech from Club Chairman Phoebe Millar in which she thanked the dedication of the members for their enormous fundraising efforts and the local businesses for their support over the years. She said that during the lockdown the club received many messages and comments from villagers that they missed seeing the gigs rowing out of the harbour, which was very touching and that the club was very glad to be able to celebrate and show off the new boat, even if it was not the event that we might have hoped for.

Phoebe went on to say that it was impossible to celebrate such a fantastic moment in the club’s history without paying tribute to our former Chair, Jim Connelly-Webster. It was Jim’s boundless enthusiasm and bold vision that not only saved Boscastle & Crackington Gig Club from folding, but created a wonderful, vibrant club that has proved capable of the astonishing feat of raising the entire cost of a new boat in just two and a half years through fundraising and donations alone.

She finished with quoting an extract from the speech Jim gave at the club’s tenth anniversary celebrations, which are well worth remembering for all gig rowers everywhere:

“So we all row, or support rowing. But perhaps it is more than rowing. Maybe rowing is just an excuse. It allows us to come together and work together on something. But what really matters is friendship and support and community.”

Thank you Phoebe Millar for this article.