12 December 2020

By Göran R Buckhorn

News reaches HTBS that Rowing Tales 2020 is now published.

In the nick of time, just before Christmas, a message comes flying through to the HTBS email box that the fourth volume of Rowing Tales, edited by Rebecca Caroe, has been published. This is a collection of stories about rowing told from different perspectives.

Rebecca Caroe writes: ‘The 2020 edition includes stories from umpires (referees), from Olympians, from beginners and from coaches. The oldest contribution comes from Joe Rantz (The Boys in The Boat 1936 Olympians) via a letter he sent to fellow Husky, Rob Gibson, encouraging him to try out for the National team. And the newest is from Arnaz Mehta, a rowing Mum, whose “family quad” race was an eye-opener.’

Caroe continues to write: ‘If you’ve never tried coastal rowing you will love the lyrical writing from Ben Booth and Guin Batten’s epic South Coast expedition trilogy.’ Furthermore, Henry Law seems to have had an encounter with a field drainpipe, animals on the water and ‘hot-seating regatta exchanges’.

Here’s William Wadsworth’s contribution:

While at Amherst College, we had a boat, an old, indestructible Pocock, which was used by novice rowers named the R. B. Trary VIII.
And my pairs partner has a single called ‘This Way Up’.
It was written upside down, of course.

The original idea for the first Rowing Tales came in 2017 and Rebecca Caroe thought she’d do a book as a one-off project. But the stories kept coming – now she collects them from guests on her RowingChat podcast, and from social media anecdotes as well as contributors who mail stories to her.

Rowing Tales 2020 is available for purchase at www.rowperfect.co.uk and on Amazon print £25.00 and Kindle £9.99 formats.

Special Offer: Buy all four Rowing Tales books (2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020) for a 50% discount. £35.00 plus £12.50 shipping pay via PayPal to rebecca@creativeagencysecrets.com include your postal address.

A longer review will follow soon.