Trip to Alkmaar celebrates 40 years of friendship

16th April, 2025

It was highly appropriate that we took a record-breaking contingent of 40 people from MBRC over to The Netherlands from 10-14 April!

Those of us lucky enough to arrive early were treated to the spectacular tulip and cheese market, held in the main square in Alkmaar on the last Friday of the month. Hundreds of huge wheels of cheese are carried, weighed and traded on the square – a sight to make anyone’s mouth water even at 9am! During the day we were gradually linked-up with our hosts from ARZV, provided with bikes (our main form of transport for the weekend) and given a fabulous welcome supper and drinks reception at a local hostelry. MBRC was presented with an inscribed commemorative oar to celebrate our 40 years of friendship which will go up in our club
soon.

The incredible warmth of the welcome given to us was reflected in the smiles and laughter that rang out well into the evening, and really set the tone for the whole weekend.

It was an early start on Saturday – our contingent of Senior Men took to the waters in Alkmaar to do some training, while the rest of us headed into Amsterdam. ARZV had organised for us to row a 15km circuit of the canals in a mixture of quads and wherries (wider 2-seater wooden boats which also take a cox and a passenger) brought from Alkmaar and borrowed from a sister club in Amsterdam. Under warm, cloudless blue skies, our intrepid flotilla of boats rowed across busy wide waterways (dodging the many boats crewed by hen and stag parties!), past bougie houseboats, through narrow bridges and along beautiful old canals. A rare chance to see Amsterdam in a way few of us would ever do as a tourist.

After a fabulous 3-course dinner and more beer-fuelled merriment on Saturday night, Sunday morning dawned with the promise of hard-racing to blow away any hangovers. MBRC had multiple crews lined up for the 4km races on Alkmaar’s waters against teams from around The Netherlands. All boats are coxed, and our crews did MBRC very proud (especially given many of them were scratch crews) with a good number of medals awarded!

• Senior Men’s 8 (Will, Toby, Marcus, Jonny, Oscar, Joe, Chris P, Matt coxed by Claire Smith) Winners!
• Two Senior Men’s 4’s raced against each other (Joe M’s crew coxed by Lorna beat Andy C’s crew, however Andy C’s crew won the mid-race 250m sprint)
• Charlotte Baars (Junior) won in her Junior quad with other young rowers from Alkmaar!

And the following crews put in a fantastic effort:

• Women’s mostly-Masters scratch 8 (Elaine, Rosie, Izzy, Pip, Juliet, Katrina, Sue L & Liz coxed by Claire S)
• Masters Women’s quad (Heidi, Lorna, Juliet, Katrina coxed by Izzy)
• Masters Men’s quad (Tim, Ian, Richard, Mark M coxed by Sarah K)
• Masters Men’s 4 (Tim, Andy T, Mark S, Chris B coxed by Elaine)
• Mixed 4 (Sue S, Rod, Sarah K, Brodie coxed by Sue L)

The day’s racing segued beautifully into a last-night party at the ARZV clubhouse with freshly baked pizza and many, many more beers. Friendships were deepened against a backdrop of photos from visits of years gone by, impromptu singing and dancing and culminating in the
inter-club race trophy being won (by 1 second!) by ARZV; and the much-coveted wooden spoon being won (finally) by Andy Hoyes!

The evening culminated in the much-anticipated “Drunk 100” which saw records and honour at stake. A simple concept – 100m on an erg as fast as you can, on a gut-full of beer (you’re disqualified if you’re sober). I’d love to say that Andy U’s Monday night erg sessions helped with this, but all technique goes out of the window as ego and club-pride mix with alcohol to produce hilarious results. Three races ensued, starting with the mostly-Masters women (won by the erg-legend that is Heidi); then the mostly-Masters Men (won by the power-force that is Mark M); then the power-tsunami of Senior Men who’s 100 was won by erg-giant Tom from ARZV who defended his title from last year.

On Monday our MBRC team left Alkmaar throughout the day, some staying long enough to get some more rowing in, some heading straight home or to an afternoon of work. Everyone, without exception left Alkmaar with new friendships forged, existing friendships deepened and with a real sense that we have an extraordinary and very special connection with our twinned club in Alkmaar. Their incredible organisation, mega-watt smiles and generous hearts have really touched us all and it couldn’t have been a better demonstration of real friendship.

We can’t wait to welcome ARZV to Bath this autumn (date tbc!) and hope that many of you from MBRC will volunteer your time to help the organising team, and that we will give them as warm a welcome as was given to us.