Restructured COVID-19 guidance for the rowing community

November 20, 2020

Whilst we have been in this second lockdown, we have taken the opportunity to review our guidance for the rowing community on dealing with the pandemic to refresh it and bring it in line with our expectations for after lockdown

Please note – the present guidance on what is allowed by the current national restrictions has not changed – this is a restructuring of the document to help future proof it.

It is now around eight months since we entered the first lockdown caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and, since the end of that lockdown, we have issued seven major versions of our guidance document on Returning to Rowing. Our guidance has helped the rowing community come together to get our clubs back open and, for a limited time at least, return to rowing competition.

Please note: each update from the last version is highlighted in yellow and there is a full list of changes at the end of the document

Whilst we have no additional information beyond what is publicly available about what will come after the (second) lockdown, the current direction of travel appears to be a return to the Local COVID Alert Levels we saw before these national restrictions. We have, therefore, taken the opportunity to restructure our guidance document, and the framework it is based on, to cater for this kind of structure.

Previously, we had set our Return to Rowing Phases from A to H which mapped the journey from complete lockdown through to all parts of the sport being back in some form. Now we find ourselves in a more complicated situation in terms of Government restrictions where certain elements of the sport may become more restricted than others. Our framework has therefore been adjusted to separate out the areas of sporting facilities, on-water activity, indoor activity, competition and hospitality facilities. This will allow us, and you, to ‘dial up’ or ‘dial down’ different areas of the sport as required by Government legislation and guidance. Each element has then been broken down from complete shutdown to normal, pre-pandemic activity. To reflect the ongoing situation we all find ourselves in, we are also renaming this document from ‘Return to Rowing Guidance’ to ‘Managing COVID-19’.

The advantage of this new framework is that we can easily describe what the situation is for the different Local COVID Alert Levels (or tiers) set out by the Government at a national level once we are out of this lockdown. There are still some local variations to this structure and so it’s really important that you check any specific local restrictions for your area and, as always, carry out a risk assessment taking into account your own local knowledge and environment. At this stage, we’ve based the guidance on what the levels were before the (second) lockdown and will review these as soon as the Government provides extra information on how things will be managed after this second lockdown ends.

As always, new guidance and material changes are highlighted in yellow in the document (guidance that has simply been moved has not been highlighted).

DOWNLOAD THE GUIDANCE ⏬

What to do if you have questions?

If you are…a

an individual member – you should contact your club in the first instance to understand their COVID-Secure protocols.
a club (including a school or university boat club) – please contact our Club Support team via [email protected]
an event or competition – please contact our competitions team via [email protected]