Sponsored row raises £13,000

l St Austell Brewery head brewer (centre) presents cheques for £6,500 each to Shane Sullivan, chairman of Charlestown Rowing Club, and Dave Nicol, area fundraiser for the RNLI

October 1, 2007: The intrepid team of Cornish gig rowers who earlier this year successfully completed the first ever Row Round Cornwall have handed over an impressive £13,000 to the RNLI and Charlestown Rowing Club.

The rowers gathered at St Austell Brewery to officially hand over cheques to both charities, with the money being evenly split between the RNLI's Train One, Save Many crew training appeal, and Charlestown Rowing Club's project to create a new boat shed, clubhouse and community building for the village.

The nine-strong team from Charlestown Rowing Club, led by St Austell Brewery's head brewer Roger Ryman, successfully completed the 300-mile odyssey in May. They set off from Charlestown harbour, near St Austell, in their traditional Cornish gig Tormentor and arrived back eight days later, after tackling:

l More than 270 miles of rowing in often rough seas and strong tides on both the north and south coasts of Cornwall

l Rounding some of Cornwall's most notorious headlands, which have claimed many a shipwreck, including Rame Head, Trevose Head, Gurnard's Head, Cape Cornwall, Land's End and the fearsome Manacles rocks, off The Lizard

l A 30-mile overland leg in which they hauled their gig and trailer, with a combined weight of more than half a tonne, from the upper reaches of the River Tamar to the Bude canal and the north Cornwall coast

The team spent the evening stop-overs at St Austell Brewery pubs in each of their ports of call around the coast, with the brewery meeting the cost of the accommodation and working with each of the pubs to organise fundraising events, including auctions and live music.

Roger Ryman, recently the UK's brewer of the year, came up with the idea as an alternative to having a mid-life crisis on approaching his 40th birthday.

Roger said: "With the cheques in, sponsorship money gathered and collection buckets counted, we are absolutely thrilled to be able to hand over this much money to two very worthy causes.

"The row was a tremendous achievement for the whole team. It was a tough challenge, both physically and emotionally, but it was also immensely satisfying to succeed, and being able to hand over this amount of money makes it all the more worthwhile. I'd like to thank St Austell Brewery and our sponsors for their support leading up to and during the challenge."

Dave Nicoll, RNLI area fundraising manager for Cornwall, said: "We are extremely grateful for the money the team have raised. Every £1,000 raised is enough to train one volunteer for a year so it is great to say we can give six volunteers the very best training and education for a year as a result of the Charlestown team's hard work and effort."

Shane Sullivan, chairman of Charlestown Rowing Club and a member of the successful crew, said: "We're all incredibly proud that a crew from Charlestown was able to take on and complete this uniquely Cornish challenge.

"The money raised has exceeded our expectations and helps the whole club get nearer to our goal of raising enough money for the Charlestown clubhouse and community building appeal."