Champs pull off successful title defences in Standard Bank SA Schools Boat Race
It was a case of “same again” at the 2025 Standard Bank SA Schools Boat Race, which was contested on the Kowie River, in Port Alfred, last weekend.
The 2024 winners, St Benedict’s College and St Andrew’s School for Girls, successfully defended their titles in the Boys’ and Girls’ A finals, respectively
St Benedict’s has now won the boys race for Eights for seven years in a row. It was a second win on the trot for St Andrew’s in the girls’ Coxed Quad A final.
The Schools Boat Race is the longest on the rowing calendar – 5.4km for the boys and 4km for the girls – which is double, or more than double the standard championship distance of 2km.
It is unique in that it is a heads race. That means that, instead of the crews all lining up in a row and racing against each other, they row against the clock on day one to determine which final they will be in and then go off in pairs on finals’ day to determine the finishing positions.
And the course is on a river, with bends and bridges along the way. It is also part of a river mouth, which means tidal changes affect racing conditions between the two days and even during each day.
That makes the role of the coxswains crucial – they need to steer the best lines around the bends and under the bridges, and their decisions can make the difference between winning and losing.
The SA Schools Boat Race follows the traditions and many of the regulations of the Varsity Boat Race on the Thames River, in London. That race, between Cambridge and Oxford Universities, is arguably the biggest single race event in the world. This year, over 250 000 spectators lined the banks of the river, and there was a TV audience of 15 million.
In the boys’ final, St Benedict’s beat St John’s by seven seconds. St John’s, who contested the final for a third time, had pipped Bennies by three seconds in the time trial the previous day.
St John’s previously won the title in 2014 and 2011. Since St Mary’s Waverley‘s long-serving head coach, Caitlin Dace, moved to St John’s earlier this year, rowing has undergone a resurgence at the Houghton school. Only Bennies had a better season, with St John’s finishing second to the Bedfordview powerhouse in both the SA Schools and the Gauteng Championships.
When St Andrew’s won in 2024, they broke a stranglehold that St Mary’s had on the title, having won it for the nine years preceding the St Andrew’s triumph.
St Stithians has finished second in each of the last three edition of the Boat Race.
