A crew from Abingdon Rowing Club take a breather before rowing another punishing mile.
Two longboats pass closer than the width of the River Thames at this point would allow.
They are making room for all the anglers on the other bank where a match is in progress.
By midday St Helen’s Wharf has brightened. The rowers and anglers are gone. The golden leaves remind us that time, like a river, so quickly passes by.
Possibly your most poetic entry since you started. Beautiful.
Lovely photos backstreeter, pity you weren’t further downstream near the Culham lock cutting, opposite the “otneys” a narrowboat coming out of the cut was suddenly faced with a wall of rowing boats spread across the river and coming straight at him, he had nowhere to go and ploughed into one of the boats capsizing it !
I was by the danger sign when said narrow boat came flying out of the lock cut way too fast, ended up on the wrong side of the river, panicked and swerved hard right to try and get onto the correct side of the river when he saw the scullers. The narrow boat was in the middle of the river when it hit the rowers and admitted themselves they were going too fast because they were trying to get their hire boat back to Eynesham before the hire period ran out. The rowing boats in question were all on the correct side of the river. The reason the narrow boat was heading towards them was because he was trying to avoid the fishermen poles which reach right out to the middle of the river. If he hadn’t been going so fast he would have had plenty of time to avoid the rowing boat that he hit.
Lovely pictures, but I feel that the comment about the incident that took place just below the sewage outlet is incorrect and misleading. There are many details prior to and during this event that have been missed out. I apologise for correcting the blogger. The narrow boat involved shot out of the cut at speed and Miss judged the turn and nearly ended up on the bank where the old canal joins the river. Narrowly missing two single scullers. There was a lady at this point on the bows shouting instructions to the steersman erratically. It then proceeded to weave down the river and was called to move back to the right side of the river by other rowing boats. It remained on the wrong side of the centre of the river. The next pack of rowing boats were not spread across the river, but were grouped across the downstream half. These rowers took evasive manoveurs, however, one boat was closer to the centre line and moved over. As quick as they could turn. Unfortunately, they would have been clear, but the narrow boat was turning towards the rowers and struck the boat just below mid ships. These rowers were capsized. The excuse given by the hired narrow boat users for being on the wrong side travelling at speed was they were trying to get back before their hire expired. This whole event is captured on GPS. I was there, witnessed this first hand and from a unique perspective. Any other day the narrow boat may have got away with it, it’s unfortunate that it was a morning when there was more rowing boats on the river than usual. Thank god it was not a group of Sup guys or the open water river swimmers out that day. Someone was going to get it somewhere along the river regardless. What we can take away from this is, that the rowers survived the ordeal, it could have been worse, that we all use the river and need to be mindful. Rowers need to be on the right side even when overtaking, Motor craft need to navigate on the right side as much as possible, fishermen need to draw their lines in to make way for craft. We all need to be aware of cannoes, Sups and swimmers. One big happy family. We all use the river, no-one has more rights over the other. Be safe, have fun.
It is amazing to think that as late as the 18th/19th centuries, St Helen’s Wharf was one of the busiest areas of the town – an almshouse and the pub were on the edge of the river, roughly where your photo was taken, a boatyard a bit further down and the river providing the main way for Abingdon’s industries to bring in materials and ship out their finished products. It wouldn’t have been so scenic then!