Statement from the Chief Umpire

As indicated by the Director’s in their statement of 18th March, 2024, DW will be implementing the Enhanced Screening Process (ESP) for the 2024 race for any crew paddling past Dreadnought. 

All such crews have to complete a mandatory self-assessment form by 7pm on Saturday 23rd March 2024 – this form has been emailed to the person who created the crew’s entry.  If you have not received the email, firstly please let us know using the email below, and secondly you can access it here.

If you are intending to paddle on the Thames after Saturday 23rd March in order to gain more course knowledge and therefore potentially increase you score, you can advise us of that via the email below. Please note that we may require GPS evidence of your paddle.

We will be scoring the course daily from now on.  That score is dependent on a number of factors such as river levels, flow rates and weather conditions and will set the cut off point for crews being allowed to paddle on the Thames.  With the short-term weather forecast and existing water levels, we are not expecting the levels or flow to drop much from the current state, indeed they are more likely to rise slightly. It is harder to predict temperatures and wind conditions this much in advance.

Whilst there is only just over a week to go before the race and most crews will have finalised on their plans for the days leading up to it, if you think you will be borderline to the cut off level there are things you can do to improve your score that don’t involve extra training runs.  Bringing an experienced support crew member into your team will certainly help your score. If the river levels do rise, would a more stable boat be a better option for you?

We want to screen as many boats in as we can. We understand that many of you have trained for months for the DW and now have significant emotional attachment to getting on the start line. However, you will all understand that we have to run a safe race for all paddlers.

The ESP is designed to be an objective assessment of the capabilities, skills and experience of crews together with other factors that impact any crew’s ability to tackle the conditions and challenges that the race throws at them.  

We need you to fill the form in as honestly and candidly as you can.  In any cases where we have doubts on your own scoring that we can’t validate, we are likely to reach to you to better understand your self-assessment.

A full copy of the Chief Umpire’s statement can be found here.