Claires Court School Boat Club - Maidenhead | UK Rowing Clubs | Row HQ

Claires Court School Boat Club is the rowing programme of Claires Court School in Maidenhead. It is based at Maidenhead Rowing Club on River Road in Taplow and trains on the Thames at Maidenhead, using local lakes for winter work.

Teacher Peter Jowitt founded the club in 1985 through a partnership with Maidenhead Rowing Club. John Rayer took over in 1987 and developed its structure; the school club moved with Maidenhead Rowing Club to the opposite bank of the Thames in 1998.

The programme takes pupils through age-group rowing from Years 10 and 11 to J18, with training built into the school day. British Rowing describes a pathway from first strokes to elite competition that includes early training, weekend regattas and holiday camps.

Its first major result came in 1990, when a J16 pair was selected for England's Anglo-French match. Claires Court and Windsor Boys' School composite crews won the Fawley Challenge Cup at Henley Royal Regatta in 1997 and 1998; Claires Court then won the cup outright in 2016 after also winning the Schools' Head and National Schools' Regatta quad events that season.

In 2022 the girls' quad won Henley Royal's Diamond Jubilee Challenge Cup in only the second year that Claires Court had entered girls. Seventeen pupils reached the regatta finals in three boats, and three former pupils also won that year in the Thames, Wyfold and Double Sculls challenge cups.

The club won the open J18 eight at the 2025 British Rowing Club Championships and placed third in British Rowing's 2025 junior Victor Ludorum. Its parent association's annual boat-club dinner raises money for equipment ranging from racing boats to rowing machines.