About Truro River Rowing Club
We are a charity and rowing club, featuring a broad membership including rowers of all abilities as well as DBS-checked coaches for training of juniors and very well-respected coxswains for our racing crews. For novice rowers we organise a six week ‘Learn-to-Row’ programme and, if you would like to progress further, a ‘Development Crew’ where we give you the training needed to bring you to a standard where you can start racing. We also have an active social rowing community. More information on how to join TRRC can be found here.
During the summer season our race crews compete in local regattas, whilst winter training consists of on-the-water technique training sessions and also regular off-the-water fitness training.
All our rowing is done from Loe Beach, where we keep some of our rowing kit as well as permanently store our two plastic training gigs. Our wooden pilot gigs are stored at the gig shed on the premises of the Penelewey Caravan Storage Facility. This venue also features as our winter training facility, where we have a selection of fitness equipment at your disposal.
Club History
The lower reaches of the Fal have been the scene for rowing events for centuries. The oldest record of a regatta held at Malpas dates from 1559, and a newspaper article dating from 1889 stating that the Malpas regatta should be considered the ‘Henley of the West’.
Truro River Rowing Club in its current form, as a club focused on Cornish Pilot Gigs, is merely the latest iteration of this very long heritage. It was started in 1985 by Dave and Jo Pearce with the help of Ralph Bird. At that point the club had already been rowing informally without club status for a couple of years, with gigs supplied by Newquay Rowing Club. Later known as Ralphs Races, these consisted of racing on Sat & Sun from various places on the river, sometimes Turnaware to the Pandora others from St. Mawes to Mylor.
Ralph Bird was instrumental in the renaissance of gig rowing in the 80’s. He built Energy, the first of the ‘new’ Cornish Pilot Gigs following the footprint of Treffry, in 1985 by apprentices at Falmouth Marine School (then Falmouth Tech). Truro River Rowing Club was formed to allow the Energy to be used by us.
Following several years of rowing in the Energy, Royal, our oldest gig, was built . Over the years she was joined by Circe (1995 - 2008), Richard Lander (2005 – 2012), Messack (2009 - present ) and Spurr (2015 - present). Of these gigs, only Royal, Messack and Spurr are still part of the TRRC fleet.
As of June 2020 Truro River Rowing Club is a charitable incorporated organisation, charity no. 1190075. A more detailed history of TRRC and it's predecessors as well as some noteworthy events can be found here.
Our Gigs
The Gig Shed
We have a gig shed for storage of our boats, located at the Caravan Storage Park opposite the Punchbowl and Ladle in Penelewey. Details on where to find the gig shed can be found here.
As well as keeping our boats in racing condition, we also use it as a fitness facility. There are several Concept 2 rowing machines available at any time, and we organise circuits twice per week.
Club Structure and Committee
Truro River Rowing Club is currently transitioning to Incorporated Charity Status. Below is a list of key positions on the committee:
Club Captain – Steve Kirk
Rowing Captain – Richard Tucker
Treasurer – Karen Dhumale
Club Secretary – Shelley Parker
Men’s Captain – Nick George
Ladies Captain – Kat Blackburn
Welfare and Safety Officer – Nita Owers
Aside from these key roles, we also have the following committee members:
Maintenance Officer – Vacant
Fundraising Officer – Kat Blackburn
Ladies Vice Captain – Vacant
Men’s Vice Captain - Dan Ware
Ladies Vet’s Representative – Tamsyn
Mens Vet's Representative – Dan Ware
Development/Learn-to-Row Representative – Susan van der Wielen
Social Rowing Representative – Karen Dhumale
Junior Rowing Representative – Nita Owers
Important Documents and Affilliations
Important club documents can be found here.
We are affiliated with the following organisations:
