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The Ocean Rowing Society (from 2006 - International) was founded in
1983 by Kenneth Frank Crutchlow, with support of an ocean rower Peter
Bird.
The reason, or rather a push that urged them to do it, was a letter
from a French journalist, asking if there existed a list of British
ocean rowers. He was writing about the row of French Gerard
d'Aboville and wondered how to compare it to the achievements of the
other ocean rowers. The answer was "No". There did not exist any
source of information for a Frenchman to get it. The world information
didn't spread as easy as it does nowadays, especially about such
specific activity as rowing oceans by individuals. Thus, the
ignition has worked.
The main goal of the Society was and still is to keep record of all
attempts to row across the oceans. Now it is impossible even to imagine, what
would be happening in the world of ocean rowing, if there were no
records started timely 30 years ago - no statistics with all
completed and incomplete rows, with all attempts and
achievements...
In 1983, after almost 90 years since the first ocean row in history,
there had been only 32 attempts to row an ocean, and only 14 of them
had been successful. And yet it was not easy even then to get
complete, full and accurate information about all and each of them,
to verify and to classify every row. The Ocean Rowing Society has
done it... in the "pre-Internet era" :) And since then, ORS has
been the only body that keeps records of all events in the field of
ocean rowing activity. The Ocean Rowing Society Int. is an official
adjudicator of ocean rowing records for the Guinness World Records.
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It's fair to mention people who made a
precious input into the recording of ocean rows. It
was
D. H. (Nobby) Clarke
from Guinness World Records who in 1964 pioneered recording of ocean
rows. He handed over to Kenneth Crutchlow all his notes that laid
the basis for the statistics. And ocean rowers Geoff Allum and Mike
Nestor, who provided ORS with their records and numerous cuttings
from press articles, and helped with the compiling of the first list
of the statistics.
Behind the lion's share of all the initiatives and activities of the
ORS there lies an altruistic enthusiasm, dedication and personal
fulfilment of the founder and permanent Head of the Society -
Kenneth F.Crutchlow. His involvement in ocean rowing commenced as
far back as 1969, when he took the train from NY to Miami on the mission to
report the arrival of John Fairfax (the first man to row any ocean
solo) for a National British newspaper "Daily Sketch".
He was involved in the next row of John Fairfax and Sylvia Cook
across the Pacific (1971), was one of the major sponsors of the rows of Peter Bird
across the Pacific (1980, 1982), worked for "Sector Sports Watches"
in organizing further attempts of Peter Bird to row the Pacific from
Vladivostok to San Francisco (1993, 1995).
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Squadron Leader D.H. Clarke D.F.C., A.F.C.
("Nobby" to his friends) |
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In 1997, at the start of the first ocean rowing race from
Canary Islands to Barbados, an American Tom Lynch, - a
friend of Kenneth Crutchlow and of then late Peter Bird, -
launched the website of ORS - www.oceanrowing.com. The
website has been permanently hosted in California by Dave
Sherry from Midnight Engineers, who neither led nor left us
even in some difficult periods, when he continued to host
the website for a mere "thank you".
In 2000 Tom Lynch, an American Director of ORS, handed over
the maintenance of the website to Ukrainian Theodore Rezvoy,
who has designed website's current interface and created
logo of ORS, placing there a saying in Latin. It expresses
the inner moto of this extreme adventure: "Nosce Te Ipsum" -
Know Thyself.
Know yourself, test yourself, challenge yourself and succeed
- the greatest victory for an individual, that's what all
this is about. Since 2000 Theodore Rezvoy has been a
permanent webmaster of www.oceanrowing.com, except for
those times, when he was rowing oceans. |
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(left to right) Mike Nestor,
Kenneth Crutchlow, Tom Lynch, Tatiana Rezvaya,
Richard Bellamy, and Sylvia Cook at the start of the First
Transatlantic Rowing Race.
Tenerife, October 1997 |
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In 2001, while Theodore was rowing the Atlantic, his row was
monitored by his mother and wife of Kenneth Crutchlow - Tatiana
Rezvaya-Crutchlow, who became and still is the Editor-in-Chief of
the ORS website.
She is in charge of maintaining and updating the general statistics,
as well as compiling its various options, selected by the aspect of
the route, category, class, age, gender, country, duration, etc.
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The list of
those who need to be credited for maintaining of
the website will not be
complete without
mentioning
Nickolay Gonsiorovsky and Irina Strautman, -
our webmasters.
Special thanks to Leven Brown for his continuous support, Peter
Hogden, Chris Martin and Rachel Smith for their valuable
assistance, Julian McHardy - for being a Chairman of all Black-Tie
Dinners.
There would be not enough room to name all those who
were kindly sending us pictures of races, start and finish of
individuals, and all sort of other ocean rowing events, which are
now the core of ORS Int. Photo Album.
They are: Vassiliy Galenko, Hillary Bastone, Tiny Little, Diana and
Stein Hoff, Hermione Macfarlane, Pedro Ripol,
Brett Sparrow
and Scott Wonenberg,
George Rock, Ted Martin (Photo Fantasy Antigua), Andrew Collins,
Phil DeasonLee
Benson, Nigel Bailey...
and many-many more...
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in 1980 Kenneth for the first time used ARGOS satellite beacons to
track
the row of Peter Bird across the Pacific Ocean from Russian Far East
to San Francisco; and hence, after launching the website, ORS became the
first to start monitoring and tracking rowers at sea, listing
positions, plotting charts and posting them - along with the press
articles, news and other information about and from rowers at sea, -
making it available to public.
ORS has coordinated dozens of
rows of individuals and in 2004 organised the first race with Solos
and Four entrees (besides traditional Teams of Two - that had been
the only class of entrees in races 1997, 2001 and 2003). It was
then, that ORS introduced a convenient way of tracking numerous
boats on one chart on the webpage, by marking them as dots of
different colours - the way adopted later by organisers of other
races.
ORS has been one of the first contacts in the list of the Coast Guards,
when it goes about rescue at sea of independent rowers. It assists
by providing/confirming the necessary data, positions, contacts, etc.
It was Kenneth F.Crutchlow , who was the first to organise a
resupply of an ocean rower on route (Peter Bird, Pacific Ocean 1983)
and then organised and participated in several resupplies of rowers
and teams at sea -
sailing and flying, or coordinating a meeting with a vessel or even another rowboat.
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Taking into account that ocean rowing is not a kind of mass
sport/adventure and its few representatives are scattered
around the world , ORS sees as its task to put rowers together, to
give them an opportunity to become better acquainted in person.
It was ORS who organised the first meeting of entries in the 1997
race and in 2002 - meeting with all women-oceanrowers, at the Royal
Geographical Society in London; lunches for oceanrowers with
representatives of Guinness World Records on the occasions of
awarding Guinness certificates to oceanrowers; and later started the
tradition of Black Tie Dinners, loved and attended by oceanrowers
from different countries and continents
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In 2000 ORS formed a committee of ocean rowers who prepared
"guidelines" for those who might themselves want to accept the
Challenge of an Ocean Row. There was established a record "Ocean
Rowing Blue Riband" which in 2008 was supported by Murano glass
figurine of a sea horse -"Blue Riband Trophy of Ocean Rowing", to be
presented to the holders of the record "The fastest row across the
Atlantic East to West along the "Trade Winds I", - the most popular
and rowed route of all in the world oceans.
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(left
to right) Sylvia Cook, Sean Crowley, Curtis Saville, Geoff Allum,
Derek King, Mike Nestor and Kathleen Saville.
Royal Geographical Society. 1997 |
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It was ORS who in 2003 came up with an idea of organising free
seminars, where ocean rowers, coast guard helicopter pilots,
psychologists, specialists in survival at sea shared their
experience with those who were planning or about to go to sea.
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ORS sees as its task to keep alive and honour names of the Past
ocean rowers. A number of ocean rowboats related to the pioneers of
ocean rowing have been saved from destruction, exhibited at several
boatshows and finally presented to the relevant museums and
organisations.
In 2003, when Kenneth and Tatiana Crutchlow visited Kilkee (Republic
of Ireland)
on the first anniversary of tragic loss of the American ocean rower Nenad Belic, they went to the spot where his boat "LUN" was found
and laid a wreath upon the sea. By the initiative of Kenneth and
local architect Tom Byrn there was conceived, created and a year
later inaugurated a monument to Ocean Rowers - the only memorial in
the world to those ocean rowers lost at sea.
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Joan Bird, mother
of Peter Bird at the inauguration of the monument to Ocean Rowers
Lost at Sea.
March 22 2003, Dunlicky Castle, Kilkee (Republic of
Ireland) |
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In 1997 ORS initiated ‘Peter Bird Trophy’, a prize for tenacity and
perseverance at the annual Dijon Adventure Film Festival. The
sculpture was commissioned by ORS to a famous Ukrainian sculptor
Michael Reva, and the names of seven ocean rowers lost at sea were
engraved on the first seven steps out of 84, of this titanium
spiral, "Staircase of Titans".
The same year, ORS initiated a commission (by Sector Sports Watches,
sponsors of Peter Bird) to artist Tatiana Rezvaya for portraits of
Peter Bird and polar explorer Borg Ousland, which joined the gallery
of adventurers an explorers at the Royal Geographical Society. The
royalties set a Louis Bird Fund, to support the education of the son
of Peter Bird (lost at sea in 1996).
The text of
this page, is available for modification and reuse under the terms
of the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 Unported License
and the GNU Free Documentation License
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*
* * * *
How often we are taking for granted something, that had already
existed and "was there" when we first entered the field. There are
some things, the presence of which seems to be so natural, that it
never occurs to us there were times when these things just did not
exist.
But there has been always somebody behind the scene, somebody who
has started, invented, thought through, organised, established, went
through ups and downs ...
Remember it next time, when you are thinking of setting or breaking
a record in ocean rowing, planning a route or looking for
information, browsing the Ocean Rowing Society Int website and its
rich database.
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