Dover Rowing Club take on a virtual race from Panama to Hawaii against teams from Deal, Herne Bay, Dover and Folkestone
Published: 00:00, 01 July 2020
Updated: 09:02, 01 July 2020
Dover Rowing Club clinched a fourth place finish in the virtual race from Panama to Hawaii, a distance of 8,099km.
It was the third leg of the virtual rowing race competing against seven other coastal rowing clubs.
A big team effort was needed, with 38 club members contributing to the distance on rowing machines, by foot, bike and workouts.
Shoreham and Deal, with bigger memberships, quickly pushed into the lead whilst Dover tried to stay with Herne Bay in a battle for third as they pulled away from Folkestone, Bexhill, Worthing and Dartmouth.
With returns to work impacting Dover's chase, they would eventually finish a few days behind third place Herne Bay.
Maria West-Burrows’ late surge pushed Dover over the finishing line and put herself back into the individual top-10 finishers with a 614km contribution.
Other leaders in the Ladies Division were Jo Johnston and Heather Corby. Chrissy Purvis added kilometres on the bike, Julie Hall on foot and Saffron Walmsley-Preece on workouts.
Dover's junior section also made a massive effort to drive the club forward with Emma Oliver leading the workouts category overall and Bo Corby leading the juniors for distance, with 157km, and an impressive total from young coxswain Scarlett Durnham-Burrows, contributing 95km to the cause. Contributions from Ella Day, Emma Spanton, Channy Mayes, Izzy Godden, Hannah Power, Jasper Mallet, Morgan Evans, Safia Corby and SJ Bamfield all helped push Dover onwards.
Dover's heaviest hitters would come from the men's division with Adrian Callard recording 200km by bike, 45km on foot and 100km on the rowing machine, leaving him the overall distance leader for the event with 1,418km.
David Newman’s 459km rated him third on the rowing machine overall. Cameron Mackintosh pushed into the top ten for running when the first teams crossed the line. Tom Stothart, Tony Burrows and Jon Cook helped tick off the kilometres, with Alfie Gardner and Matt Barnett riding to land big distances for Dover.
There were valuable contributions from Jacky Silk, Nick Bailey, Paul Scrivener, Jen Jordan, Jon Osborn, Kate Day, Karen Ponsford, Marie Cockerell, Lorna Florence Clay, Steve Woods, Chris Hall, Chris Price.
Dover now look to the virtual Hawaii to Papua New Guinea leg, a further 7,419km, and the hope that they can soon return to the water.
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Luke Cawdell