7 December 2025 By Philip Kuepper The rowers in their shellsI saw as rows of candles.They flamed! past, on the water.How like an altar, the river,and the sun, an acolyte,lighting the wick of each r…

1 December 2025 By Anonymous An over 55 chases 200km on the ergometer in a month. Like many during the pandemic, I was unable to get onto the water – nor even leave the house – and so I decided to …

16 November 2025By Philip KuepperWhose ghosts are they who ghost the oars?The spirits of rowers past,who row through the rowers living,spirits who now dwellbetween the celestial and the earthborne,…

Picture: theartofmorganmacdonald.com 9 November 2025 By Philip Kuepper What the rowers broughtwas the boat homethrough the complicityof wind and waves,waves that bit like teethat the shell,their wi…

The Great River Race, in 2023. Photo: Tim Koch 8 November 2025 By Carlos Dominguez The River Thames is London; the only landmark on the Tube map.A blue ribbon separating north from south.Forded by …

It took Jess Rowe and Miriam Payne six months, plenty of snacks and sleepless nights to row from Peru to Australia

3 November 2025 By Philip Kuepper They are a selective race,rowers. They arean elite. Will power alonemakes them so,the will power to becomefit, fit enoughto race, simplyto race to race.At bottom i…

26 October 2025 By Philip Kiuepper The river said one thing,then, immediately,contradicted itself.This went on repeatedly.And repeatedly I gave uptrying to follow what it wassaying.I had thought to…

Jess Rowe and Miriam Payne have set a new record with their five-and-a-half-month crossing from Lima to Cairns

Photo: CPH 19 October 2025 By Philip Kuepper The vast fuselageis wrapped in sunlight,Christ-like, and the sunlightwrapped in blue sky.The plane lies on a planeof runway. It is positivelygeometric. …

11 October 2025 By Philip Kuepper The rowers stood still,erect as a row of pines.They anchored the scenewith contained energy,while all around themflightiness ranged:the river, the woods, the town.…

9 October 2025 USRowing has renames its highest honor as the Anita DeFrantz Medal of Honor. USRowing  announced that its most prestigious recognition, formerly known as the Medal of Honor, will be …

Photo: Stonington Crew Instagram 5 October 2025 By Philip Kuepper Glitter vests the entiretyof Mystic Riverthis sun-drowned September morning,on which vest sits pinned,like a brooch,a women’s…

28 September 2025By Philip Kuepper I launch each word a crafton the lake of a poem,a craft strong enough to weatherwhatever the lake’s surfacewill deliver, from calm,to a sudden squall.A poem…

Not any more. Sadly, Henley’s River and Rowing Museum (RRM) closed to the public on 21 September and has moved into a “mothballed” state to reduce the level of financial losses while the trustees a…

21 September 2025 By Philip Kuepper Through the risen Mysticdrawbridge, this morning,passed the Flying Dutchman,passed the Fata Morgana.O!, what a sight!I couldn’t believe my eyes,though my m…

Three races, two oarsmen, and one sculling rivalry mired in controversy Canadian sculling champion Edward “Ned” Hanlan on left (“the Beaver”) and American sculling champion Charles E. Courtney on r…

A crew from the Starcross and Cruising Club. Photo courtesy of Scott Harrison-Jones (Click to enlarge.) 16 September 2025 By Ben Lowings*(text and drawings) Walking one afternoon down to the river,…

14 September 2025 By Philip Kuepper Come morning, the worldlay scoured clean,bristle-brushed by the rainnight had witnessed fall.The docks dripped wet,and shone with a sheenlight looked at itself i…

7 September 2025 By Philip Kuepper It is early.Other than the roweronly quiet is up.To the eye, the waterlies still. Water is never still.It will lie glacial in its movement,but never still.Shell t…

Gig rowing on the River Teign in south Devon, the UK. 4 September 2025 By *Carlos Dominguez Boats as old as industry.An imported Cornish history of coastal pilot gigs.Made real by the hard graft of…

1 September 2025By Göran R Buckhorn Leander continues with the club’s popular Library Rowing Book Talks where authors come to talk about their rowing books. Next author coming up is Olympian Tim Cr…

31 August 2025 By Philip Kuepper The shell swamped.Yes, well,that’s when rowersare meantto use their arms as oars. (20 August 2025)

Parade nautique. Photo © Jean-Michel Meunier 25 August 2025By Hélène Rémond A new edition of the jazz and pleasure boating festival Les Rendez-vous de l’Erdre takes place in 15 cities of the Nantes…

Ottoman Imperial caïques in the Istanbul Naval Museum. Photo: Wikipedia 24 August 2025 By Philip Kuepper ‘Hmm?Well, okay.I’ll try a piece,but a small piece.I don’t want it sitting…

or Are Not Rowers Champions, Also? The fictional character Jack Armstrong, dubbed “The All-American Boy,” was created by General Mills in 1933 to promote Wheaties® on the product box, in print ads,…

10 August 2025 By Philip Kuepper Rowers are shellfish.I smile at the thought.They are gritworked into pearls.And strung in a rowas they sit and row,they make a necklace.They are cultured,results of…

3 August 2025 By Philip Kuepper I do not slight the rower.I do not slighttheir agility, their expertise.Yet, an oar in handis seldom a certain thing,when the elements rule.Wood meeting water,water,…

27 July 2025 By Philip Kuepper Basque, the priest rows,and dreams the mysticwho walked the water,dreams the miraculousdraft of fishesthe mystic, walking, caused happen,mystic walking by the breaths…

Do you have one of these to share? 12 July 2025By Göran R BuckhornHTBS receives an email.HTBS receives quite a lot of emails. Many of these emails are from readers or not yet readers, but the sende…

In the Grand, the Dutch national crew vanquish Cambridge University by one-third of a length to go to the final. 6 July 2025By William O’Chee Many will say that the best two days of racing at Henle…

New Zealand’s Emma Twigg, a veteran of five Olympic Games and a Henley Steward lost by three lengths in a heat of the Stoner Challenge Trophy (Premier Women’s Double Sculls). Here we also see a ref…

The River & Rowing Museum in Henley-on-Thames is closing. Picture: Jaap Oepkes © RRM. 3 July 2025Sad news comes from Henley. In a press release, the River & Rowing Museum writes that the Mu…

4 July 2025 By Philip Kuepper I wave the flag. I transformthe flag into a wave.Its stripes are rivers:Mississippi, Missouri,Colorado, Columbia,Connecticut, Hudson;its stars, mountains:the Rockies, …