 | |
| Location | The Spit, Sydney |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 33°48′50″S151°14′35″E / 33.81389°S 151.24306°E |
| Home water | Middle Harbour, Sydney |
| Founded | 1911 |
| Affiliations | NSW Rowing Association |
| Website | mosmanrowing |
Mosman Rowing Club is an all-level competitive and recreational rowing club on the North Shore of Sydney. Since 2007 the club's facilities have been wholly located at The Spit in Sydney's Middle Harbour, the northern arm of Port Jackson.
Mosman's red and white hooped racing colours date back to 1873 when the Mercantile Rowing Club was founded on the west side of Sydney's Circular Quay at Dawes Point. A meeting of warehousemen and merchants' clerks had decided to form a second club the second in the colony (after Sydney Rowing Club). Henry Woolnough was the club's first chairman, he had earlier been a committee member at Sydney. Mercantile's first patron was the Governor of the New South Wales, Sir Hercules Robinson. Mercantile enjoyed a strong patronage but began to struggle in the 1890s and sustained losses when it opened an unsuccessful branch shed at Parramatta. [1]
In 1911 due to poor water conditions in the busy port and the expiration of a lease, a decision was made to relocate the original boatshed and all rowing equipment to Mosman Bay on the northern side of the harbour and to re-establish the club as the "Mosman Rowing Club". [2] The Dawes Point boatshed was purchased from the disbanded Mercantile club and rebuilt at Mosman in time for new club's official opening on 1 April 1911. [1]
The club operated from this building until 1933 when a new clubhouse was built on the same site. Boating and ferry traffic made this location less than ideal and from the 1950s senior training was done from Pearl Bay at The Spit near Mosman. A boatshed facility was built there in 1967 at the cost of $74,000. [1] The Club's rowing facilities were progressively re-housed to Pearl Bay with the Mosman Bay site being transformed to a licensed social club. That site was closed in 2007 and major upgrading and a complete relocation to Pearl Bay had occurred by 2010. [2]
From 1956 the club owned bushland property at Killarney Heights on the foreshore of Middle Harbour with water access looking across to Castlecove. The site was used as a club recreation and rowing camp facility but was never able to be developed and fully utilised. In 2005 the club sold the land for $1.5M but retained a 150-year lease on a building on the property. In June 2012 the club also sold its lease on the building and severed its connection with the Killarney Point site. [3]
In 1930 the Mosman VIII was chosen in toto as the state representative eight for New South Wales in the Kings Cup at the Australian Rowing Championships. The crew won the King's Cup. The Mosman club's win that year of the Sydney premiership pennant marked the ninth successive year the club had won the pennant and eclipsed the Sydney Rowing Club's 1880 to 1888 record for the longest successive run. [4]
The MRC, based at Pearl Bay, Mosman is the main rowing centre for some 450 rowers, including elite, seniors, juniors, masters, recreational and school rowers. The shed houses over 100 rowing boats.
The MRC is self-funded by memberships, lease arrangements to schools and private members' ongoing fundraising activities. A number of Sydney's private girl's schools have a leasing and coaching arrangement with the club. [5]
MRC has had representatives in World Rowing Championships and Olympic Games rowing squads over its history. From the Rome 1960 until London 2012 the Mosman club had at least one representative in every Australian Olympic rowing squad excepting Moscow 1980 and Barcelona 1992. [6]
Notable club members include:
Olympic representative members include:
World Champions include:
James Bruce Tomkins, is an Australian rower, seven-time World Champion and a three-time Olympic gold medalist. He is Australia's most awarded oarsman, having made appearances at six Olympic games ; eleven World Championships ; four Rowing World Cups and eighteen state representative King's Cup appearances – the Australian blue riband men's VIII event,. Tomkins is one of only five Australian athletes and four rowers worldwide to compete at six Olympics. From 1990 to 1998 he was the stroke of Australia's prominent world class crew – the coxless four known as the Oarsome Foursome.
The Mercantile Rowing Club is based in Melbourne, Australia on the Yarra River. It was founded in 1880 and has occupied its current site since 1885. More than 40 Mercantillians have represented Australia at Olympic Games.
The Adelaide University Boat Club is a rowing club affiliated with the University of Adelaide. The club was founded in 1881, and in 1896 helped to form the Adelaide University Sports Association. The main clubrooms, donated by Robert Barr Smith in 1909, are located on the north bank of the River Torrens on War Memorial Drive, adjacent to the Adelaide University Sports Grounds. The shed has two boat bays, a gym and weights room and a small bar. The club also leases a secondary boatshed at the South Australian Rowing Association complex on Military Road at West Lakes, and also trains regularly at Port Adelaide's North Arm Creek and Murray Bridge. Members have included rowers of all levels, from total beginners to Olympic Gold Medallists. The club shares the nickname "The Blacks" with the Adelaide University Football Club.
Tom Laurich is an Australian former rower – a junior world champion, a national champion, an Olympian and a medallist at World Championships. He has coached crews at the elite world class level.
Sarah Ann Patricia Cook is an Australian former representative rower. She was a six-time national champion and a dual Olympian who represented at senior World Rowing Championships from 2006 to 2011. Since competitive retirement she has been a rowing coach, commentator and a sports administrator at the highest levels. She has been a board member and since 2021, the Chief Operating Officer of Rowing Australia. Since 2022 she has been a member of the World Rowing Council representing Oceania.
David William Crawshay is an Australian former rower, an eleven-time national champion, an Olympic champion and medalist at World Championships. He represented Australia in rowing at three consecutive Olympic games from Athens 2004 to London 2012.
Robert "Bob" Alan Shirlaw is an Australian former rower and stalwart school level rowing coach. He rowed at the 1964 Summer Olympics and the 1968 Summer Olympics.
Sydney Rowing Club is the oldest rowing club in New South Wales, Australia formed in 1870. It has occupied its current site on Port Jackson's Parramatta River at Abbotsford Point since 1874. The club has a focus on its high performance and elite rowing programs and as of the 2021 Olympic Games, sixty-eight rowers from the club had competed at the Olympic Games rowing in one hundred and two of the seats raced by Australian Olympic crews. Over one hundred club members have achieved national selection.
Daniel Noonan is an Australian former representative rower. He was a national champion, a world champion, a dual Olympian and an Olympic medal winner.
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Rebecca Susan Joyce is an Australian former rower, a sculler in the lightweight division. She was a five-time national champion, a 1995 world champion and Olympic medal winner.
Jane Robinson is an Australian former rower - a national champion, three-time World Champion and triple Olympian. She competed at the Summer Olympics in 1996, 2000 and 2004; and at World Rowing Championships in 1997, 1998, 2001, 2002, and 2003. She won World Championships as both a sculler and a sweep-oared rower. She attended Toorak College in Mount Eliza, Victoria.
North Shore Rowing Club is the oldest sporting club on the north side of Sydney Harbour in Sydney, Australia formed in 1879. It has occupied its current site on the Lane Cove River at Yacht Bay, Longueville since 1933. The club has a focus on masters, juniors and social rowing. The club conducts an annual corporate regatta and a learn-to-row program.
Samuel Beltz is an Australian former lightweight rower. He is a 16-time national champion, a world champion and dual Olympian. He competed at the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics and represented Australia at the premier world class regattas over a fifteen-year period from 1999 to 2014.
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Roger Arthur Ninham was an Australian Olympian stillwater rower, a surfboat rower and surfcraft boat builder. As a stillwater rower he was a four-time national champion across both sculling and sweep-oared boats and competed at two Olympic Games.
Kim Mackney is an Australian rower. He competed in the men's coxless pair event at the 1972 Summer Olympics. From school until the national elite representative level and onto a long world-class masters career, Mackney rowed competitively for over fifty years. He can be credited with salvaging and re-establishing the Glebe Rowing Club in Sydney after its 1992 demise.
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