About The Club

Chesterton Rowing Club is approximately 80 years old and was originally founded as Pye Rowing Club from the erstwhile telecommunications company of that name. Since then, we have undergone 2 name changes:  In the 1990s we became Simoco RC, reflecting the name of the new owner of the mobile radio business on the old Pye site.  More recently in 2008 the club changed its name to Chesterton Rowing Club as the connection with the company was no longer relevant.  We are now fully independent from any corporate affiliation and the club is open to all comers.

We currently have a membership of approximately 50. We own two Janousek VIIIs, one each for the men’s and women’s squads.  Likewise both squads have a IV.In the last year we have purchased 24 new Concept2 carbon fibre blades for both VIIIs and IVs. The club also owns two sculls, a double and a training tub. We boat out of Queens’ College Boathouse or Peterhouse College Boathouse where we have racking space.

The men’s and women’s squads are run separately by the annually elected men’s and women’s captains.  However there is frequent overlap between the two squads for the training of novices, coxing and subbing.  In the winter our main training session is on Saturday mornings, with some outings on Sundays.  In the summer, we have more evening outings.  Both squads run erg sessions throughout the winter.  In 2013, the women’s squad  hired their own personal trainer from Core Cambridge for rowing specific weight training. (http://core-cambridge.com/) which is very popular with the squad.  We run ‘learn to row’ sessions twice a year, usually in September and April for novices. Promising novices can find themselves in first boats within their first season.  We do not offer junior rowing.

We cater for all abilities of rowing and aim to offer outings of the right standard for all our members.  There is a degree of fluidity between M1 and M2 and W1 and W2.  On the whole we aim to enter all on-Cam events and 3 or 4 off Cam events each year.  Nearly always the focus of our winter training is the WeHORR and HORR.  Likewise the highlight of the summer training is participation in town bumps.  Our M1 boat is currently at position 11 and our W1 boat made it up to position 8 in 2018.

2013 was an especially memorable one for the club as we won the John Jenner trophy in the bumps for the best performance for a club when allowance is made for the number of boats entered.  A men’s VIII also won IM3 at Peterborough Regatta and IM2 in the Boston Marathon.  In 2014, the women’s squad won the Winter League in the novice VIII category and came 155 in WeHORR and 4th in the Novice Club category which is our best position in last ten years.