Felixstowe Rowing Club (FXRC) was formed in March 2021 and is primarily a coastal rowing club using 32 foot long, coxed, 6 oared replica Cornish Pilot gigs for sea and river rowing.

FXRC currently has 60+ members and is an open club for male and females aged
18+. The club is based at Felixstowe Ferry Sailing Club at The Ferry, Felixstowe.

We row throughout the year (weather permitting) and have access to the River Deben and the coastal waters off Bawdsey and Felixstowe.

FXRC has 2 Cornish Pilot gigs: St Felix and St Etheldreda, sponsored by 2 thriving
local businesses: ‘A&S Recruitment’ and ‘3PL’.

FXRC offers sessions both midweek and at weekends, and (during summer) on some evenings. Extended sessions are sometimes arranged so that we can row upstream to Waldringfield, Woodbridge, or even to the ‘Iron Bridge’ in Bromeswell/Lower Ufford, or explore further along the coast. Occasionally we explore other rivers (Orwell, Ore/Alde, Butley Creek).

Weather  permitting, each member can expect the opportunity to row at least one session per week, and frequently several times a week.

Fancy a try at rowing or coxing? It is fair to say that pretty much all the current members were beginners to gig rowing when they decided to give it a go. We keep coming back for more as we love getting out on the water and enjoying each other's company and the feel-good factor that gig rowing is giving us.  

If you are interested in coxing only, you would be warmly welcomed to come and have a try. Full training would be given. There is a reduced membership fee for members who only cox.

The particular benefit of gig rowing at Felixstowe transcends a physical workout as the connection with nature, the positive effects of new friendships, teamwork and enjoyment is incalculable.

So we welcome new people to try out on a non-obligatory basis. Please have a look at our membership section for further details.

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The Felixstowe Rowing Club was started by Terry Davey, Lyn Gameson, and Joel Early after they had a few drinks one night, and thought that Felixstowe really should have a gig rowing club.

The Felixstowe Rowing Club (FXRC) officially launched on 10 th April 2021 when we pushed our new gig (‘St Felix’) into the river Deben off the Felixstowe Ferry shore for our first row.

St Felix is a fibreglass replica of a Cornish Pilot gig, which makes it less expensive and easier to maintain than traditional wooden gigs, which are built to an exacting standard. Pilot gigs have a Coxswain plus 6 rowers. In addition, there is a Pilot seat, which traditionally was used to take a ‘pilot’ (someone with good knowledge of the local waters and hazards) out to a ship to help guide it safely into harbour. As only one pilot was required, competition between gigs was fierce, as each
tried to be the first to row their pilot out to the ship.

Although Cornish Pilot Gig clubs are associated with the West Country (particularly Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly), we see the FXRC not so much as introducing Pilot gig rowing to Suffolk, as resurrecting a tradition: the old eighteenth and nineteenth century ‘Beach Companies’ of the Suffolk and Norfolk Coast (whose activities included salvage and life-saving) also used Pilot gigs and they were almost identical to the West Country boats.

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Why does the club logo have a bishop’s mitre?

St Felix was the first bishop of East Anglia (7th century), who was praised for delivering "all the province of East Anglia from long-standing unrighteousness and unhappiness".

We often row past, or even over, the remains of Walton Castle, (only visible during very low tides), which included a church connected with St Felix; even today, a few locals call the castle remains the ‘Church Rocks’.