Thames skiff rowers journey the length of the Mississippi

Mississippi Millions

The Mississippi Million rowers led by John  Pritchard arrived at New Orleans on the 25th October after rowing two Thames skiffs for 2,320 miles down the mighty river. It has been a huge achievement and I hope they get the recognition they deserve – and that John  raises a good sum for the charity Right to Play, which promotes the right of all children to be able to play.

The rowers describe it as a mix of toil, pain, laughter, wonderment, hospitality, friendship, kindness, headwinds, rain, thunder, lightning, tornados, blood, sores and Sam Adams beer, though no doubt Chris Partridge would call it pleasure. Read John’s weblog account here, and Patrick Broughton’s here.

I particularly like his last entry, which simply reads: ‘Begining of the day End of the day. Job done. And yes there were tears.’

Charles Napier Hemy, Victorian painter

Page through a wonderful – and wonderfully romantic – set of Victorian era paintings of mainly fishing  boats using the little arrows on the left and right of each frame.

Read about Charles Napier Hemy here. There are many more paintings here, here and here.

Row St Kilda to Skye

This summer a group of locals rowed 100 miles from Village Bay St Kilda to Portree on the Isle of Skye in an open rowing boat bulit around 1890, and raised funds for the RNLI and Skye & Lochalsh Young Carers along the way.

The next mission for Row St Kilda to Skye is to reintroduce skiff racing back to the Isle of Skye Highland Games – their boat Aurora was originally built to race in the games’ regatta, so next August the aim is to have her racing once again.