Rowing Best Times

I have yet to find a conclusive response to the question often asked as to: ”what is the top speed of a rowing shell?”

A few years ago I saw a video post of an 8 men crew pulling up a water skier for some distance.

The average speed of current world best Rowing Times recognized by FISA is 22.5 Km/Hour or about 14 MPH for the Men’s 8+; 5:19:35 over the 2000m course.

There were supposedly burst of over 24KM/Hour on that race. The men’s 8+ is the overall fastest Rowing craft.

Because environmental conditions affect the rowing speed, FISA Rowing governing body recognizes Best Times and not world records.

Below are the current recognized best Rowing Times as posted in Wikipedia.

Men

Boat	Time	Crew	Nation	Date	Meet	Location	Ref
M1x Single sculls	6:33.35	Mahé Drysdale	New Zealand	2009	Poznań, Poland
M2- Coxless pairs	6:08.50	Hamish Bond Eric Murray	New Zealand	2012	Summer Olympics	Eton Dorney, England	[2]
M2+ Coxed pairs	6:42.16	Igor Boraska Tihomir Franković Milan Razov (coxswain)	Croatia	1994	Indianapolis, United States
M2x Double sculls	6:03.25	Adrien Hardy Jean-Baptiste Macquet	France	2006	Poznań, Poland
M4- Coxless four	5:37.86	Andrew Triggs-Hodge Tom James Pete Reed Alex Gregory	Great Britain	2012	Lucerne, Switzerland
M4+ Coxed four	5:58.96	Matthias Ungemach Armin Eichholz Armin Weyrauch Bahne Rabe Joerg Dederding (coxswain)	Germany	1991	Vienna, Austria
M4x Quad sculls	5:33.15	Vladislav Ryabcev Alexey Svirin Nikita Morgachev Sergei Fedorovtsev	Russia	2012	Lucerne,Switzerland
M8+ Eight	5:19.35	Gabriel Bergen Douglas Csima Robert Gibson Conlin McCabe Malcolm Howard Andrew Byrnes Jeremiah Brown Will Crothers Brian Price (coxswain)	Canada	2012	Lucerne, Switzerland
LM1x Lightweight single sculls	6:46.93	Jeremie Azou	France	2011	Amsterdam, Netherlands
LM2- Lightweight coxless pairs	6:26.21	Tony O’Connor Neville Maxwell	Ireland	1994	Paris, France
LM2x Lightweight double sculls	6:10.02	Mads Rasmussen Rasmus Quist	Denmark	2007	Amsterdam, Netherlands
LM4- Lightweight coxless four	5:45.60	Thomas Poulsen Thomas Ebert Eskild Ebbesen Victor Feddersen	Denmark	1999	Lucerne, Switzerland
LM4x Lightweight quad sculls	5:45.18	Francesco Esposito Massimo Lana Michelangelo Crispi Massimo Guglielmi	Italy	1992	Montreal, Canada
LM8+ Lightweight eight	5:30.24	Klaus Altena Christian Dahlke Thomas Melges Bernhard Stomporowski Michael Kobor Uwe Maerz Michael Buchheit Kai von Warburg Olaf Kaska (coxswain)	Germany	1992	Montreal, Canada

Indoor Records

Category	Time	Split	Nation	Year	Name
Open Men	5:36.6	1:24.1	New Zealand	2008	Rob Waddell
Lightweight Men	5:56.7	1:29.175	Denmark	2013	Henrik Stephansen
Open Women	6:28.4	1:37.1	France	2005	Sophie Balmary
Lightweight Women	6:54.7	1:43.7	United States	2010	Ursula Grobler

• Lwt Men: 75 kg (170 lb) maximum weight
• Lwt Women: 61.5 kg (136 lb) maximum weight [3]

John M. Duarte