It is with a heavy heart, that my first post this year is to share the sad news that Robin Corti passed away peacefully in his sleep on Tuesday 5th March .

Robin had been bravely battling with his illness for the last year, but  continued to be involved in Scout and other charity activities right up till Christmas where he made an appearance at the 14th Richmond annual Christmas Breakfast reunion.

Robin, amongst his other many positions, was the secretary of the Scout boating centre. He had considerable experience in adventurous water activities as well a penchant for finding and getting grants and funding for costly boating equipment.  Robin was a invaluable right hand man to both me and Vic as managers of the boating centre. His help and  advice was invaluable and I will be forever grateful. Robin was one of our mainstay instructors, both taking young people out on Jubilant and in  Skerrys, He also taught and assessed adults for water activity permits, some of my fondest memories are rowing with Robin in the Great River Race.

When I first became a Group Scout Leader in Twickenham, Robin was there as District Commissioner to interview , then support me for over ten years , even after he retired as DC when Richmond and Twickenham Districts amalgamated.  Robin was there again to help me when I took over the 14th Richmond “Viking” Scout Boating Centre.

Robin was my friend and my mentor and I will miss him terribly.

My thoughts and love are with Carol and family at this very sad time.

Trevor Hall

Centre Manager 14h Richmond Scout Boating Centre

The 14th Richmond Scout Boating Centre had four boats in this year’s GRR, Jubilant, Gordon Hall, Fan Maker and Naiad. All boats completed the race successfully and all crews (seemed 🙂 to enjoy themselves, the weather was perfect with overcast sun, not too hot, and river conditions pretty good.

Jubilant with a new invigorated Crew completed the course in the fasted time ever for Jubilant in 2h 47 minutes,

Gordon Hall (Thames Watermans Cutter) for the Worshipful Company of Scientific Instrument Makers with Simon in charge,completed in 2h 11m was 7th fastest overall, and first in three classes (Thames Watermans Cutter, Riparian Borough and City Challenge)

Fan Maker (Skerry) crewed by our associated club the Bench Blisters completed the races in a great time of 3h 1m

Naiad (Skerry) was crewed by our long term friends and sponsors AREEN and completed the course in 3h 21 mins, pretty good for a first time GRR crew. The Areen Crew are raising money for CRASH – Construction Industry’s Charity Charity! Please Donate on Just Giving here

The “refreshed” Jubilant crew have been out training on the river, a recent trip was captured by Ruth Wadey (photographer – known for regular BBC Weather “Weather Watcher” pictures http://www.wadey.com/ ) , she has kindly let us use these images .

Jubilant was relaunched after a major refit over the winter, she is all pristine and freshly varnished ready for the 2023 season. Bookings can be made for outing on Jubilant or our other boats from our booking page (email the boating centre if you do not have a registered login account)

We are also looking for more people to train as instructors, we can run all the courses, and do the assessments for Scout Pulling permits.

After a lot of work clearing Robin Arundel’s prop from a couple of metres of tangled rope, and rebuilding the prop thrust plate supports, this Sunday I finally got to taker her for a spin around our moorings by the flowerpot islands to check our boats (bailing, covers ropes etc)

The day could not have been better, the flood of a 7.2m (London Bridge) spring tide perfectly cancelling the almost 200cumecs of fluvial flow so the river was flat calm and glassy for about 1.5 hours. It was still very cold , ice in the boats and frost on Robin Rescue, but quite beautiful, tough had to wade back along the river front (glad I had wellies)

I just love being on the River!

Trevor – Centre Manager

At last, after two years of pandemic lockdown, we were able to run the Christmas Breakfast face to face again.

In the last two years we have had to resort to virtual celebrations at home, with everyone cooking their own breakfast.

This year we also celebrated our Centenary (which actually happened last year). The 14th was formed in April 1921, and the breakfasts started about 10 years later.

This year numbers were down on normal, sadly we have lost many old friends over the last couple of years. The strike disruption also put a number of people off travelling.

We had about 40 people sitting down for a full english breakfast cooked by Neale and Rosemary, supported by a small gang of helpers. In fact , in the tradition of the 14th, most of the people attending helped in some way or other -from serving out plates to clearing and washing up.

Thank you to all who attended and helped to keep this 90 year tradition going.

Trevor – Centre Manager

Everyone had a Centenary Mug to remember event.

This year we have a two month Draw-Off where the barrier curtain at Richmond Lock is not closed , this means the river drops to its natural level at low tide, and the foreshore and manu of the mooring areas dry out.

We treat the draw-off as an opportunity to inspect and repair the Scout moorings and they definitely needed some work. At the start of 2022, we lost one of the pendulum mooring chains, as the chain links dip into the gritty river bed, the links of the chain rub together and eventually wear through.

It was a perfect day, as the rain has held off for a week allowing the river level to drop sufficiently to expose the river bed at our moorings, this was dubbed Trevor Island a few yeas ago as I seemed to spend so much time on it .

Trevor Island and the boat “Dreckly”

It was a perfect day, as the rain has held off for a week allowing the river level to drop sufficiently to expose the river bed at our moorings, this was dubbed Trevor Island a few yeas ago as I seemed to spend so much time on it .

So 50m of heavy chain has been bought (about 100kg) and the main groundchain relaid, plus the broken pendulum mooring chain replaced. As we leave Jubilant on our moorings in the summer, the anchors and ground chain have to be in good condition for such a heavy boat. But… all done now, so hopefully all fine for he next few years.

Trevor Hall Centre Manager

Scout Moorings at Low TIde during the Run-Off