26 September 2020

By Göran R Buckhorn

While HTBS mostly writes about ‘traditional rowing’ meaning each competing boat in its own lane, there are other forms of rowing like coastal rowing, or off-shore rowing, which is like a boxing match when it’s time to round the buoys, as it said in the video below.

Quite a few countries have taken up coastal rowing. To mention some: Ireland, France, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Spain, Portugal, the UK, USA, Peru, Uruguay and Australia (where they use so-called surf boats). Coastal rowing has become so popular that the governing body for rowing, World Rowing, FISA, has proposed including this particular rowing into the Olympic rowing programme in Paris in 2024. Coastal rowing has already been added to the 2022 Summer Youth Olympics held in Dakar.

The following video will give you an idea how different and extreme the sport of coastal rowing is.

Enjoy!