St Peter’s Boat Club has received confirmation that it successfully broke the World Record for the Longest Continuous Row, after rowing for 10 consecutive days on a single rowing machine. The previous record of seven days had been set by Hull University Boat Club in 2019.
Over 70 people participated, handing over the handle of the rowing machine without ever letting the flywheel stop spinning. Shifts would last between half an hour and two hours – some rowers, completing multiple shifts, rowed up to 12.5 hours over the course of the event. Those who volunteered, from students to the college master Judith Buchanan, covered 2,620,927 metres in those 240 hours. For the rowers reading this article, the average split was of 2:44.8/500m.
“Graveyard shifts” in the middle of the night proved to be quite different from those in the middle of the day when the Junior Common Room – the erg’s location during the event – filled up. Rowers were kept entertained as films and music played at all times. The challenge even survived a BOP night, as the erg was carefully safeguarded in the corner of the room. The former rowing Olympic umpire Judith Packer, who had started rowing during her studies at St Peter’s, also hopped on a video call to encourage the rowers to pursue their efforts. To add to the fun, rowers were dared by donors to wear funny outfits. Notable mentions are the morph suit and the prison jumpsuit.
The team started a GoFundMe, which received 102 donations, accounting for a total of £4,345. 70% of this revenue will go towards the Boat Club, to elevate coaching standards and subsidise costs for training camps and races. The remaining 30% will go towards St Peter’s College Access and Outreach programme, which is aimed at encouraging students from underrepresented backgrounds to consider applying to Oxford.
