With a beach start and five buoy turns to navigate over the six kilometre course, the 2018 World Rowing Coastal Championships in Victoria, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada’s Pacific coast, provided three days of skilful manoeuvres, clashing oars and dramatic finishes as competitors from around the globe contested for the world titles. With the announcement from FISA six-weeks later that it would be proposing the inclusion of coastal rowing in the Olympic Games for Paris 2024, the profile of the increasingly popular coastal rowing discipline seems set to skyrocket.
Pictured: Barbara Jonischkeit (b), Hannah Bornschein (s), of Germany racing in the A-Final of the 2018 World Rowing Coastal Championships in Canada. Photo by Igor Meijer