The challenge week

UYBC members are taking on a range of ambitious and fun challenges over the course of one week (Monday 9th March to Sunday 15th March) in order to raise money for our club. These challenges include anything from climbing a mountain with a rowing machine to cycling from Blackpool to Scarborough. Our aim is to raise enough money with your help to purchase a new top 8+ for our men’s crews as well as setting aside money for the continuous refurbishment and repair of our current fleet.

THE university of York boat club

Established in 1963, the University of York Boat Club is the oldest sports club at the University and, with over 200 members, has the largest active member base of any club. Our club boasts some of the University’s most committed athletes, many of whom have learnt to row at the club since starting at the University.

Rowing not only offers enjoyment and personal fulfillment for our athletes but also develops resilience, communication, leadership and incredible team-working skills. We compete at a variety of events from local, regional and national level races to suit the ambitions and abilities of our rowers, with our best athletes competing at the highest levels. We take great pride in representing sporting excellence at the University of York.  

our Story

The cost of maintaining and improving our equipment in line with other nationally competitive clubs is extremely high. If we wish to truly compete with the best performing British University clubs, significant investment in facilities, boats and coaching is required.

Our athletes dedicate an enormous amount of their time and energy to this sport with many training 10-12 times a week, often early in the morning, to ensure better preparation than our competitors. The commitment to a training regime set for our performance squads is demanding enough before you consider that all our athletes are pursuing a challenging degree program, often achieving exceptional results in both sporting and academic life.

In recent years the club has gone from strength to strength. In the 2018/2019 academic year, the club achieved some fantastic results with highlights including: Victor Ludorum at Peterborough Regatta, our top men’s four winning Band 1 in their category at Reading Regatta and three boats qualifying for Henley Women’s Regatta, with the women’s double making it to the quarter-finals.

You can help us achieve our vision and get to the next level, we need an environment and facilities that allow athletes to train and compete without compromise. Your donation today will help us renew our boat fleet to a higher standard.

Where will the money go

Our main fundraising target for the 2019/2020 academic year is to purchase a new top Men’s 8+. Our current boats are outdated and no longer of a high enough standard for a top University club.A competitive racing boat can cost in the region of £20,000-£30,000, even second hand.

The club has already decided to dedicate £10,000 of this year's budget to the purchase of this boat. We need your help to get the next £10,000.

Racing boats are extremely high end pieces of equipment that use top of the range technologies also seen in the aerospace and sailing industries. Boats usually consist of a carbon fibre shell with a honeycomb-like filling to provide strength and stiffness to the shell while keeping the design as light as possible. Detachable aluminium or carbon fibre riggers are also used to reduce the weight of the design. These high-tech materials along with the requirements to construct these boats by hand are what results in such a large price tag.  

The challenges

These are just some of the challenges that our athletes will be undertaking throughout the week:

• The Ouse Marathon 
• Yorkshire Three Peaks
• Rowing 4 marathons in 12 hours
• Climbing Mount Snowdon with a Rowing Machine
• Cycling coast to coast
• Cycling 1000 km
• Running 150 km
• 300 km on the rowing machine
• 48 hours gym bike race
• 65 km walk in the Lake District
• Walking from York to the source of the Ouse
• Cleaning up the banks of the river Ouse
• Trade Up Challenge

You can find a full list of our challenges, and learn more about each of them on our our website.

Our challenges are ambitious but have the athletes undertaking them have been preparing them for weeks and have taken every safety aspects into consideration. 

Follow us on social media to keep up to date with all the challenges

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Instagram - @uybclub

Twitter - @UYBClub

www.universityofyorkboatclub.com