Ocean Rowing Society Founder Memorial Service

Kenneth Crutchlow, 1944 – 2016: The service will take place at 12:15pm on Thursday, February 4, 2016 in London

Kenneth Frank Crutchlow, the Founder and the President of the The Ocean Rowing Society Int. since 1983, passed away on January 17, 2016 of cancer. The service will take place at 12:15pm on Thursday, February 4, 2016 at the City of London Cemetery and Crematorium Chapel Aldersbrook Road London, E12 5DQ, report the Ocean Rowing Society (ORC).

The Ocean Rowing Society (from 2006 – International) was founded in 1983 by Kenneth F. Crutchlow, with support of an ocean rower Peter Bird.

The reason, or rather a push that urged them to do it, was a letter from a French journalist, asking if there existed a list of British ocean rowers. He was writing about the row of French Gerard d’Aboville and wondered how to compare it to the achievements of the other ocean rowers. The answer was “No”. There did not exist any source of information for a Frenchman to get it. The world information didn’t spread as easy as it does nowadays, especially about such specific activity as rowing oceans by individuals. Thus, the ignition has worked.

The main goal of the Society was and still is to keep record of all rows across the oceans. Now it is impossible even to imagine, what would be happening in the world of ocean rowing, if there were no records started timely 30 years ago – no statistics with all completed and incomplete rows, with all attempts and achievements…

In 1983, after almost 90 years since the first ocean row in history, there had been only 32 attempts to row an ocean, and only 14 of them had been successful. And yet it was not easy even then to get complete, full and accurate information about all and each of them, to verify and to classify every row. The Ocean Rowing Society has done it… in the “pre-Internet era” 🙂 And since then, ORS has been the only body that keeps records of all events in the field of ocean rowing activity.

Kenneth F. Crutchlow Bio Active life: running, swimming, cycling, writing, rowing coordinator.

#oceans