The Goal

We are a crew from West End Rowing Club, based in Avondale in Auckland. We are heading over to the Henley Royal Regatta (27/06 - 01/07) to race in the Prince of Wales Challenge Cup. This page is a little about what we are aiming for and a bit of background on where we are going.

The Henley Royal Regatta

Henley Royal Regatta is undoubtedly the best known regatta in the world and is both one of the highlights of the summer sporting calendar and the social season. 

It attracts thousands of visitors over a 5 day period and spectators will be thrilled by over 200 races of an international standard, including Olympians and crews new to the event.

Unlike multi-lane international regattas, Henley still operates a knock-out draw with only two boats racing in each heat. This entails the organisation of up to 90 races on some of the five days. To complete the programme by a reasonable hour, races are started at 5-minute intervals.

The length of the Course is 1 mile 550 yards, which is 112 metres longer than the standard international distance of 2,000 metres. It takes approximately seven minutes to cover, so there are often two races at once on the Course for much of the day. The number of races is, of course, reduced on each successive day, leaving only the Finals to be rowed on the last day.

The Prince of Wales Challenge Cup

The Men's Quadruple Sculls event was introduced to the Regatta in 2001, at the same level as The Ladies' Challenge Plate and the Visitors' Challenge Cup. For a number of years The Men's Quadruple Sculls has been the only event at the Regatta without a Challenge Trophy.

In 2007 H.R.H. The Prince of Wales kindly consented to his name being associated with a new trophy for the Men's Quadruple Sculls - THE PRINCE OF WALES CHALLENGE CUP.

The trophy has been donated by Mr. V. G. Saunders, a Member of the Stewards' Enclosure, and was the original prize awarded to the winner of the 1931 King's Cup Aero Race, E. C. T. Edwards, the brother of H. R. A. (Jumbo) Edwards, the famous Oxford Coach. This new trophy was contested for the first time at the 2008 Regatta.

The Course

The traditional length of the Course is 1 mile 550 yards (2,112 metres), which was the longest distance of open water that could be obtained in 1839 on the Henley Reach.

	The Barrier	Fawley	The Finish
The Start	2089 feet	3435 feet	6930 feet
The Barrier		1346 feet	4841 feet
Fawley			3495 feet

The length of the second part of the Course from Fawley to the Winning Post thus remains sixty feet longer than the first part from the Start to Fawley.