What happened at WEHoRR - and is British Rowing's CRI prepared to deal with climate change?

Anyone strolling along the banks of the Tideway in London last weekend may have had their attention caught by the 158 rowing boats racing down the river as part of Women’s Eights Head of the River Race (WEHoRR).

The historic competition, the largest women's rowing race in the world, is the highlight of the calendar for many. However, last Saturday, several rowers were left in tears at having entries cancelled days before the event.

Race organisers had to slash down the initial 326 entries in response to the PLA Ebb Flag, which signposts the safety of the river, staying on yellow rather than green. It was a decision that had to be made to allow the event to run and the efforts of organisers have been widely praised. It has, however, ignited a conversation over how to prevent crew-culling heartbreak in years to come.

What happened at WeHORR 2024?

On Tuesday, March 5, four days ahead of the race, WEHoRR warned crews: "As always, the WEHoRR Committee are working hard to deliver a fair and safe race for all our competitors. We have been monitoring both weather models and the strong flow of the river as part of this process. As of Monday evening, the river has a Port of London Authority (PLA) Ebb Flag status of red. If the PLA Ebb Flag status remains red, we will be unable to run the race for safety reasons. We are currently working towards a scenario where the PLA Ebb Flag status will be yellow on race day."

All J15 and beginner crews were then withdrawn as per PLA guidance and clubs asked to 'revist their own risk assessment'. Crews that chose to withdraw were offered a full refund.

On Thursday, further guidance was published by WEHoRR. It read: "Although the stream and river levels have fallen enough for the PLA Ebb Flag status to change to yellow over the last few days, they remain well above the threshold where the PLA would change the flag status to green. This means that we need to increase the gaps between crews to allow for safe marshalling and navigation within the allotted river closure time for the event, which we are unable to extend.

"The unfortunate consequence of this is a reduction in the number of crews that we can safely include in the draw. In these conditions, we believe that the appropriate number of crews is around half of the original field."

Changing climate ravages rowing races

Fear within the rowing community is that difficult situations such as those seen last week could become increasingly frequent for race organisers. NationalWorld spoke to Jen Bartram, a BBC weather presenter and keen rower.

Jen said: "Severe weather disrupting rowing is something which is happening more and more, especially during the winter season. We know that our climate is getting warmer, which in turn means that heavy and prolonged rain happens more frequently. That has a knock-on effect for the sport – nobody really minds rowing in the rain, but fast-flowing rivers are much more dangerous, especially for crews who are unfamiliar with the navigation. Race organisers can’t stop the weather from happening - despite how much they would love to! it’s a question of preparation for it and putting a contingency plan in place.

"I often have informal chats with race organisers a week or even a fortnight in advance to give them an idea of whether weather will cause any problems and from there on it's about assessing the risk and making a call. Everyone wants to put on a great event, but safety must come first, which might mean anything from a shortened course to a smaller field of rowers, or even cancellation altogether."

When it came to this year's WEHoRR, Jen explained that it was a 'situation of wind against tide' which meant that organisers did everything right in making a call ahead of race day, although admitted that it was 'always going to feel unfair' for those who missed out.

The impact of Crew Ranking Index on clubs

In its statement on the Thursday, WEHoRR explained that the Crew Ranking Index (CRI) was used as the 'primary metric' to decide which boats could compete. Those who had entries pulled received refunds and the statement added: "This has been a tough decision for the committee to make, and we sympathise with all those who will be disappointed not to race on Saturday. We have decided to make this call now rather than later in an effort to give as many crews as possible the opportunity to race, while providing enough notice to those who will sadly miss out."

British Rowing, who are behind the CRI metric, explain that the figure is calculated from the sum of 'Personal Ranking Indices (PRIs) of the individual rowers within the crew, excluding the cox'. The organisation adds: “Your PRI is based on your performances in both head races and regattas. Points are allocated every time you race in both heads and regattas. The number of points you are allocated depends upon how well you do relative to others and how many crews race.”

While the system works on paper, it can cause grief for crews with a lower number of points - if they are always the ones to be cut, how can they ever build up enough points to avoid missing out?

One of the clubs that missed out of WEHoRR was Furnivall Sculling Club. A boat club whose racing squad has improved hugely over the last six months under new coaching, rowers were left in tears in the changing room following news that months of training would not culminate in a WEHoRR showing.

Furnivall captain Evelyn Tichy said: "It was awful for them. It was our goal to put a stake in the ground for WEHoRR and not doing that has a disproportionate effect on recruitment for next year as well. For the leadership of the club, that was terrible.

"For the rowers themselves, they made the best of a bad situation and went on a bit of a rowing adventure to Westminster, but there were definitely tears. One of our rowers, it was her last race with the squad before moving clubs and she was gutted.

"If you’re a club like Furnivall, whose ethos is to teach a lot of people to row who have never rowed before, then it’s very hard to have enough points for a cut-off. The points cut off is a very blunt instrument for ability and safety. The sport needs to be more inclusive but this is an issue for that. It’s a structural problem and not the race organisers’ fault.”

It was a particular blow for Furnivall, whose impressive recent showing at Hammersmith Head last month would have seen them with enough points to compete at WEHoRR, but those results had not yet been added to the system. To add frustration, a number of crews with enough points to race had been beaten by Furnivall twice in the last two months.

Like many others, Evelyn acknowledged that the perfect solution is not easy to find but suggested that the number of years experience in a boat could maybe be taken into account. She said: "It’s not something specific to us but your points deteriorate over time, which is great as if you’ve taken a break you’re not immediately competing against people who kept rowing in that time, that’s a good thing. But the downside is when you need pointed crews for cut-off, you can’t say that if a rower has taken five years out not racing, they suddenly are not safe anymore.

"I’d have a combination of CRI points cut-off and a look at how long people in the boat had rowed to counteract for long breaks. That’s complicated to do when making a quick decision 48 hours before a race but maybe that information could be collected beforehand to be prepared for that decision."

There is also a worry that clubs could use the current CRI system to play a bit of a game by entering rowers with high points and swapping them out on the day of the race - 50% of a crew can be changed before competing. The Furnivall captain added: "If we had wanted to play that game, we could have, we have plenty of people in the club with hundreds of points. Lots of clubs do that. The problem with this type of decision is it may incentivise clubs to play these games."

As touched on by Evelyn, the effect of late cancellations due to weather can cause a serious problem for rowing clubs across the country planning to travel and race, both for morale and finances.

Impact on clubs outside of the capital

Ancholme Rowing Club is one of the UK's smallest boat clubs and was proud to have a women's eight entered into WEHoRR. The boat was one of those that had to be cut and, unable to refund travel and accommodation, rowers still made the trip to watch from the banks of the Thames.

One experienced member, Andy Doyle, said: "We’re a really small club, so to get together an eight can be a struggle for us. That’s the crux of the problem, these clubs need to be protected. CRI will be low. We’ve got some beginners in there but that doesn’t make the boat unsafe because the cox has been coxing for years, is an ex-Oxbridge cox and some of the women in that boat have been rowing for 40 years.

"It’s a sense of achievement. There’s one rower who went to University this year, didn’t get into the 1st 8+ and was in our boat and didn’t row. There were genuine tears over it. It’s a real thrill to go and row on the Thames."

Andy is another who, even feeling the pain for his Ancholme colleagues, was quick to sympathise with the WeHORR committee. However, he pointed out that there needs to be a system where the crews unable to race feel more aggrieved with the weather gods rather than those volunteers.

He explained: "If you cancel it for half the crews on a metric system, it’s going to get ugly. The responsibility for whether a club can put a crew out to row on the Thames is the club’s responsibility. Assuming all boats are competent and the marshalling gaps need to be increased, a ballot would be fair.

"You’ve got to recognise that a lot of clubs from the north, that’s their big event for the year. You have to change the mentality of it a little bit to move away from being a really competitive event to also a mass participation event for people doing it for the experience of rowing on the Tideway."

WEHoRR immediate past chair and former Olympic rower Guin Batten told NationalWorld that organisers exist with a 'sole purpose to put on the race, not judge athletes'. She added: "The more you race, the more you get points. We know there is a connection between experience and the amount of points you get. None of us needed to take two days off work to sort this out, we are in a better position with the CRI points now than before."

Guin accepted that the points system 'isn't perfect' but highlighted how the system exists to encourage people to race and build up points. The former chair added that she would recommend the committee continue to use CRI points and said: "I would predict it's used more and more and coaches and athletes get more savvy on how to get their points up. We'll need to make sure it is fit for purpose."

British Rowing told NationalWorld: "WeHORR is an affiliated competition organised by its own organising committee, so we wouldn't expect to be involved in any decision-making regarding reducing crew numbers. There isn't another method available to organising committees to reduce crews which is impartial and transparent like CRI. We support the actions that the WeHORR committee took to run their competition safely."