Yorkie Lomas, the club captain at Dartmouth Amateur Rowing Club, has been installed as president elect of the West of England Amateur Rowing Association which administers rowing in Devon, Cornwall and Somerset, following a nomination by his club. He will become president in 2019, an important year in the history of the Dartmouth club.

Next year the club will celebrate its 150th anniversary having been formed on March 22, 1869. To mark the anniversary, Deal, Walmer & Kingsdown Rowing Club agreed to forego their right to stage the South Coast Rowing Championships which will now be held on the river Dart on Saturday, September 14,, 2019, at Dartmouth. Similarly Castle Dore Rowing Club agreed to slip their opportunity to provide the President of the West of England ARA in 2019 to allow the Dartmouth club to take up the Presidency.

Yorkie, who is also a senior coach at Dartmouth, has also taken on the role of team leader in the West of British Rowing’s Inter-Regional Regatta. He is staging this year’s trials on Saturday, February 24, at Totnes to select crews for the Junior Inter-Regional Regatta to be held on Saturday, April 21, at Nottingham.

Yorkie is a talented rower having won West of England ARA fours Championships. He was also a member of Dartmouth’s four man ocean rowing crew who in 2004 became the first four to row an ocean setting a benchmark record of 36 days to row across the Atlantic from San Sebastian de La Gomera to Port St Charles, Barbados, a record which stood for over a decade.

Yorkie is also a vice chairman of the Port of Dartmouth Royal Regatta, a member of the Dart Community Boat Store group and a crew member of the Dart RNLI.