King’s Boat Club Battle Through the Night for Charity

Over one hundred King’s Worcester rowers finished the year off with a bang, completing their annual One Million Metre Charity Rowing Challenge in under 17 hours, raising over £5000 so far for Acorns Children’s Hospice.

The exhausting challenge, which is now in its ninth year, saw pupils start at 4pm on the last day of term and row the equivalent of six hundred and twenty miles (one million metres) in 16 hours and 55 minutes: a new school record, beating that set in 2022, and one the team had set their sights on smashing this year. Held in King’s Michael Baker Boathouse, the pupils worked in shifts to row five-minute intervals continuously for an hour at a time.

The final leg of the challenge saw over 50 Fifth and Sixth formers (Years 11- 13) remaining overnight and camping on the Boathouse floor, whilst taking it in turns to keep the rowing ergos in continuous motion. That evening, around 12 OV rowers also came along to help the team out, slotting straight back into the crew as if they had never been away.

The younger pupils joined back in from 7am on Saturday morning and the event was opened up to other OVs, parents, families, and friends to come and watch the rowers cross the finish line. This well-supported event was even bigger this year, with the event falling on a Saturday morning. The Boat Club Community were out in force, filling the Boat House with supporters cheering on the team as they broke the school record.

The challenge, which has raised over £40,000 in the last six years for various charities, involves pupils from Lower Remove to Upper Sixth. This year the Boat Club chose to raise funds for Acorns Children’s Hospice, to support both this incredible local cause and the two OVs who are currently taking part in their incredible challenge of rowing 3,000 miles (4,800 Km) across the Atlantic, unsupported, with the hope of raising £100,000 for Acorns. Read more about their awe-inspiring challenge here.