All incidents need to be reported to the Club Rowing Safety Adviser (CRSA) as soon as possible and the report completed (i.e. all witness statements gathered etc) within 24 hours of happening. This applies whether it’s a full-on crash, falling out your single because you hit a duck, getting massively washed down by a launch or just tripping over an object left on the floor of the gym with absolutely no injury to yourself. You should also report poor or dangerous navigation by others even if it didn’t result in an incident – this is part of the Thames Regional Rowing Council agreement with the Port of London Authority.

This is important to ensure that Thames and other Tideway clubs are able to improve our practice and learn lessons from incidents and near misses.

If the incident was complex please first email to say a report is on its way, with time and date and brief details. Then draw a diagram of what happened, scan it, put in all the relevant data, time of day, tide direction, state of tide (high, medium or low), type of boat or boats, names of crew (especially steers) with level of qualification of steers and a brief description of the incident then email it to safety@thamesrc.co.uk. Include as much detail as you can. You need to clearly explain what happened in a factual way, without saying things like “they were in the wrong place and hit us”. If possible, include boat ID numbers or names of the offending non TRC boat.

No Thames member should report directly through the British Rowing Incident Reporting System. All reports are only to be made to the CRSA who will ensure that the relevant details have been gathered, before reporting the incident if appropriate.

For the reasons why it is good practice to report every tiny little, non-contentious capsize or near-incident, please make sure you read and understand Chris George’s Tideway Safety website.

Email safety@thamesrc.co.uk if you would like more information or have any questions.