BOSCASTLE and Crackington Gig Club was founded in 2005 after the devastating floods that hit both villages on August 16 2004.

While these floods put Boscastle on the map for dramatic reasons, it enabled a group of people – some who were already rowers and others from the local area who fancied giving gig rowing a try – to gain community funding to start a club of their own.

The club has always prided themselves on having a wide range of members from all age groups, and this remains their ethos to this day.

With their initial fundraising, they were lucky enough to be able to commission their own gig, and received Torrent from her builder, Peter Williams, in January 2006.

She was joined by Rival, who was purchased from Fowey Gig Club later that year and these wonderful boats have served the club brilliantly over the years, helping them to some great victories and bringing heaps of fun to their members rowing on the North Cornwall coast.

By 2013 however, some of the early momentum had been lost and to give a new impetus for the future, a ‘five year plan’ was devised to help boost their results and membership by overhauling training, coaching and focus, while offering social rows and maximising opportunities for members to get on the water.

This included a winter training programme at Tamar Lakes for the long, stormy months, where it was not safe to put out to sea and the purchase of a plastic gig as the wooden boats cannot be kept on fresh water. They visited other clubs to learn more about top level coaching and training, and a recruitment drive saw membership treble. Their results began to improve and since 2013 the principal Men’s crew has risen from 106th at the World Championships a huge 82 places to 24th in 2016.

The Women’s principal crew have seen a similarly meteoric rise from 115th in 2013 to 44th in 2016.

Alongside this, the club has won various races and trophies, with five of the nine crews winning silverware this season and winning overall top club at the World Plastic Gig Racing Championships and at Devoran Regatta. With active racing members from the age of 24 – 70 the club includes everyone in their crews and success has been enjoyed at every level of the club.

Alongside this improvement in results, they are also ‘incredibly proud’ to have helped with the first ever ‘Rowability’ project to offer the opportunity to try gig rowing to people with disabilities.

One of the members set up the Tamar Rowability project, with British Rowing and the Cornwall Sports Partnership in Spring 2016, and they have enjoyed a hugely successful summer with over 80 participants in their fortnightly sessions, coming from various day centres and support groups across Cornwall. Some of these participants, having learnt to row through the project, are now going into the wider gig rowing community and joining their local clubs.

Members have volunteered with the project at every session, providing coaching and support to the participants, as well as the club providing the equipment for use in the sessions.

With the success of the club, they need a new wooden gig in order to help meet demand. Training slots are pressured with nine crews to train and social rowing. Also, Torrent is now ten years old and as the crews are now competing at the top level they need a new, modern racing boat that will support our ambition to reach the Group A finals in the World Championships.

A new boat will cost £25,000 and all their usual income from fundraising events and membership is needed to keep the club running and maintain and repair the boats and equipment they already have. Without grant funding, the club won’t be able to expand their fleet of boats and continue the great work and progress that the club is making.

They have always sought to encourage membership for all, and want to continue to be able to offer new membership and plenty of rowing and training for all comers — their size now means they need a new boat to support and achieve all their ambitions.

To support their project please visit www.avivacommunityfund.co.uk and place your vote!