The weekend of Saturday, August 22nd and Sunday, August 23rd brought coastal rowing success for Durham ARC at the Scottish Rowing Beach Sprint and Offshore Championships at St Andrews.
The double-header formed the final round of the 2026 Four Nations Coastal Sculling Series, the English Senior Beach Sprint round of which took place at South Shields in May.
DARC was represented by Dyfrig Williams in the Open 1x Beach Sprint, Seren Williams in the Women’s under-19 Beach Sprint and Coastal 1x, and Seren Williams and Charlotte Foster in the under-19 Women’s Coastal 2x.
Coastal sculling endurance events take place over a longer course of around 4km, while beach sprints consist of an out and back 500 metre dash starting and finishing on the beach.
Congratulations to Seren and Charlotte on winning gold in the Women’s U19 Coastal 2x and Seren on winning silver in the Women’s U19 Coastal 1x.
Results from each day have been published for Saturday and Sunday.
The victories follow on from medal successes for the pair at the combined English and British Coastal Rowing Championships at Whitby in July.
The calendar of coastal sculling competitions is outlined here.
Thanks go to the event organizers for a successful weekend.
Seren and Charlotte in Durham
Presentations to overall winners in the Coastal Series will be made at the British Rowing Beach Sprint Championships at Bournemouth on September 4-6th.
Already confirmed as a new Olympic event for the 2028 Games in Los Angeles, Beach Sprint racing moves into a more exciting phase with the announcement by World Rowing this week of a global Beach Sprint Series, each round of which will feature 16 national teams. The inaugural event is to take place in Antalya, Türkiye between March 26th and 28th, 2027.
British Rowing has established Coastal Sculling Academies around the country to help anyone interested in taking part in coastal rowing, with the northern base at Tynemouth Rowing Club offering taster sessions.