Rowporty launches new skiff Sunday 17^th April

Please come down to Portobello beach at noon on Sunday 17^th April to help Rowporty launch their brand new skiff! It’s been built by loc­als here in Porty for com­munity coastal row­ing as part of the Portobello Skiff Project (aka Rowporty), an off­shoot of the Portobello Sailing and Kayaking Club. Rowporty was set up in response to the Scottish Coastal Rowing Project launched in Anstruther in 2009, a pro­ject designed to bring afford­able, eas­ily con­struc­ted and light­weight boats to com­munit­ies around Scotland for both fun row­ing and ser­i­ous racing, and it already has attrac­ted almost 100 mem­bers from Porty and Joppa.

Rowporty star­ted build­ing this skiff in December 2010, the second that Rowporty has con­struc­ted in the last eight­een months. All the row­ing teams are eager to try her out, and with the increase in num­bers of people tak­ing now, the group can really use this second boat.

The new skiff will be car­ried along the prom from Joppa to Bath Street at noon on Sunday 17^th April. There will be a short nam­ing cere­mony, and a present­a­tion by the Royal West Rowing Club of a racing trophy which belonged to one of the ori­gin­al Portobello row­ing clubs, then the new skiff will be launched into the sea, where there will be a few oth­er skiffs wait­ing to greet her.

This is spe­cific­ally a com­munity pro­ject, so costs are paid for by fun­drais­ing. Unlike sail­ing or main­tain­ing your own boat, for example, the only expense in tak­ing part in this club’s pro­jects is yearly mem­ber­ship, and per­haps the pur­chase of the dis­tinct­ive Portobello green ‘Never mind the Rollocks’ t – shirt. You don’t need any row­ing exper­i­ence to join a team. Not all build­ers row and not all row­ers build, and some mem­bers don’t build or row, but every­one is wel­come to come to meet­ings, to arrange for a tri­al trip, to man the infam­ous cake stalls at the Regatta, help with fun­drais­ing, help with main­ten­ance, learn to use the res­cue power boat (nev­er needed, but a neces­sary safety detail) or work on the his­tory and mem­or­ab­il­ia research — or just come along to watch the skiffs out on the water.

Rowporty’s ori­gin­al skiff, ‘Icebreaker’ is a famil­i­ar sight out on the water these days, hav­ing been com­pleted last spring in time for a few months hard row­ing prac­tice, before com­pet­ing in a sea­son of regat­tas. This year’s Portobello Regatta will take place on 30^th and 31^st July, and will fea­ture skiffs from all over Scotland, from Achiltibue to North Berwick. Some of last year’s com­pet­it­ors have also been build­ing a second skiff so the num­bers of teams tak­ing part this year will be even higher!

www.rowporty.org.uk