Commercial Rowing Club

What a fabulous evening it was last Saturday for our annual Awards to celebrate a stellar year for CRC! 🥳

It was wonderful seeing our youth squad in force, cheering on their crew mates who collected awards 🩵💙

Many thanks to the Italia family for their very generous donation of a new single scull 👏

Guest speaker, Randall Martin, shared his insights into the preparation behind the extraordinary performance by our Queensland King’s Cup ‘Drought-breakers’! 💪

⭐️ Best Youth Oarsman 2026 - William Dalgliesh

⭐️ RU Best Youth Oarsman - Alex Cook
 
⭐️ Best Youth Oarsman Crew - Flynn O’Loughlin & Scott McDonald. 
 
⭐️ Best Youth Oarswoman - Ruby Macleod
 
⭐️ Best Youth Oarswoman Crew - Kat Cook, Ruby Macleod, Audrey Petie, Waverly Palmer, Maggie Rowan, Eva McGeachie, Grace Camuglia, Olivia Alford and Juliette Arthy (cox)
 
⭐️ Best Youth All-Rounder - Cianna Becker
 
⭐️ Best Masters Oarsman - Jeff Peerboom 

⭐️ Best Masters Oarswoman - Barb Hall 

⭐️ Best Masters Crew - HoTY 2026 winners (D category): Eddie Luck (cox), Ben Finemore, Jamie Russell, Greg Brown, Steven Kovac, Glenn Wright, Simon Gardner, Marcus Neil, Michael Malakellis
 
⭐️ Coxswain of the Year - Lauren Robinson
 
⭐️ Coach of the Year - Gary Townsend
 
⭐️ Club Member of the Year - Alecia Thomasson

It was a packed Brisbane River last Saturday to kick-off the popular Winter Racing Series for the local rowing clubs.

Formatted as a time trial, it marks the start of long-distance racing in preparation for the pinnacle Head of the Yarra in November.

It was great to see plenty of boats on the river racing in the blue and blue!

Series #1 results:
🥇MMD8+
🥈MMC8+
🥈MME8+
🥇WMF8+
🥇MMC4-

Go the Mersh! 🩵💙

It was 1996.

Much to the dismay of Brisbane rowers, they were to share their river with City Cats!

The situation was perilous - the presence of rowers and high speed vessels in the low visibility of early mornings was not ideal.

Bruce Greenland, Chair of Rowing Queensland at the time, helped work up a safety plan with the City Council.

“A third, a third, a third!” The City Cats were to stick to the middle third of the river while the rowers occupied the outer thirds.

It was not without risk..

Then a young Adam Bakker arrived on the scene. He was a bit “gung-ho”, preferring to approach washes on the perpendicular at speed rather than quietly on the parallel, and often ahead of the pack and out of the sight of coaches 💪

An accident waiting to happen, and it did, when one morning Adam and his doubles partner were run over! 🫣

They came away with cuts and bruises but survived to row another day... faster than before..

Adam went on to win 🇦🇺
🥉Bronze at Junior World Champs 2014 (2x)
🥉Bronze at Junior World Champs 2015 (1x)
🥇Gold at U23 World Champs 2017 (M4-)
🥇Gold at U23 World Champs 2019 (M4+)
🩵💙

CRC boys enjoying the colder weather!