The Fulham Reach Boat Club received its first fleet of 16 boats today, ranging from singles and doubles to fours and eights, as it prepares for its official opening next month.

The club will be the first to open on the Boat Race stretch of the River Thames in more than 50 years and will aim to give schoolchildren and the local community the opportunity to try their hand at rowing.

The delivery of the boats, shipped all the way from Shanghai,was aided by students from the local Hammersmith Academy, which is one of four schools already in partnership with the club - Chelsea Academy, Burlington Danes Academy and Lady Margaret School being the other three.

These schools will participate in six-week courses at the new boat club, giving students the opportunity to learn how to row, and pursue a passion for the sport should they have one.

The new club, headed by three-time British rowing champion Steve O'Connor, was made possible through a section 106 agreement between developer St George and Hammersmith and Fulham Council, which produced a £3 million ($5 million/€4 million) fund for the development and running of the club in tandem with the construction of nearly 750 riverside flats, plus offices, restaurants and bars.

Three-time national rowing champion Steve O'Connor was brought in a year-and-a-half ago to manage the development of the new boat club and help deliver the clubs objectives
©Iain Weir


"Fulham Reach has come about as part of an agreement between St George the developers and Hammersmith and Fulham Council as part of what is called a section 106 agreement," said O'Connor.

"So normally developers would agree to improve green space, or for instance out here, they've redone the Thames Path.

"But with this particular 106 there was an agreement to build a community boat club and fund it as well.

"So that's where we started from.

"I was brought in about a year-and-a-half ago to write the initial development plan; so how the actual club would operate, both as a business and delivering on its objectives.

"And from there it's gradually grown, and we've set up a charity by the same name.

"That charity's objectives are to deliver rowing sessions to the local schools and also the local community.

"There are various other avenues that we are going down and as we get into it things that people think we should try and achieve, but those are the two main things we do."

A major aim for the club is not only to give state school students and residents of the local community the opportunity to row, but also to allow these schools to grow into their own rowing clubs with the chance to compete nationally in the foreseeable future.

The use of rowing as a tool for social and physical benefit is also a major factor in the club's development, according to O'Connor, who explained to insidethegames that bringing these benefits to students and members of the public "is a real personal goal that will keep us doing our job".

Students from four state schools in the area, including Hammersmith Academy, will benefit from a six-week training course at the new boat club ©Iain Weir



He added: "Within racing we have kind of a joke about it being quite a niche sport because not many people get the chance to do it.

"But once you get into it and get hooked on it it's really addictive.

"But also the thing with rowing is there are huge social benefits that I'm really keen to get across.

"So things like team work, because it is the ultimate team sport - there's no time where you can have a star performer who can carry a team, you can't really do that in rowing.

"So teamwork; motivation; self-esteem, that comes from being fitter and stronger; all those sorts of benefits, I think if we can bring those to students that have never even seen a boat I think that for me is a real personal goal that will keep us doing our job."

More than half of Britain's rowing Olympic gold medallists at London 2012 were privately educated, with fewer than a third deriving from state schools.

O'Connor, as well as other major rowing stars such as five-time Olympic champion Sir Steve Redgrave, was in fact state school educated and he hopes to bust the myth that rowing is a sport only for the elite class.

He believes that through this new club, a new wave of Olympic stars could rise, bringing a change to the public's perception of rowing as an elitist sport.

"If we have a student with potential that we can see can go on, there's no reason why we can't develop that potential here and take them as far as they want to go in the sport.

"So that's really exciting.

"Although we're not a high performance centre and we don't pretend to be, we do have a facility where if we see some potential and they are keen to progress we can move them along that direction when they want to."

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