AROUND 20 boats and crews took part in the annual Manningtree Rowing Festival, organised by the Stour Sailing Club.

They came from clubs from Norfolk to Kent.

Saturday's events celebrated the 25th birthday of the local Claydon Skiffs, which are based on traditional Thames working boats.

Local crews were joined by the winning 2015 Great River Race Claydon Skiff crew “Eezee Oars”, from Gravesend, in their skiff Gary John Gray.

The skiff was originally raced by the Felixarc crew from Felixstowe, who, in 1995, won the Great River Race outright.

In a birthday surprise, members of the 1995 and 2015 Great River Race winning crews, Felixarc and Eezee Oars, joined together in Gary John Gray to race at the Festival.

For the first time, community crews of novice rowers took part in the event for the Portishead Sprint Races.

The Rose team took the honours for the women, while the team from the Red Lion won the men’s category.

On Sunday, in glorious sunshine, the Claydon Skiffs were joined by visiting clubs and 18 boats and crews raced in perfect conditions for over seven miles down the estuary from Manningtree to Wrabness and back with a new record time for the first fixed seat coxed boat of just over one hour and 10 minutes.

The fastest sliding seat boat completed the course in just over an hour.

Stour Sailing Club Commodore Tim Goodwin said: “We had a fantastic weekend of rowing at the club and it was great seeing so many boats and crews out enjoying our estuary in glorious weather.

"As well as our established crews and visiting clubs, we were really pleased to see so many new local rowers on the water, most of whom only rowed for the first time at our Push the Boat Out event a couple of weeks ago.”