Race day in Putney starts earlier than most people think. This year it falls on Easter Saturday, the first time the race has landed on Easter weekend in several years, which means the day has more going on around it than usual.
The first activity on the embankment is at 10:30 on Saturday morning, a full four hours before the women’s race begins, and the day builds steadily from there. This is a guide to every stage of it, timed so you know what to look for wherever you’re standing.
🚣 Everything you need for Boat Race day in Putney, where to stand, which pubs open early, transport tips and all the build-up, is on our dedicated Boat Race guide page.
The timetable
Putney Embankment closes to traffic from 8:30am to 5pm. Here is the full schedule for the day.
| Time | What happens |
|---|---|
| 10:30 | Festival of Rowing flotilla leaves Mortlake heading for Putney |
| 11:00 | Fan parks open at Furnivall Gardens and Bishop’s Park |
| 11:15 | Festival of Rowing arrives in Putney |
| 12:15 | Women’s coin toss on Putney Embankment |
| 12:50 | Men’s coin toss on Putney Embankment |
| 13:30 | Channel 4 broadcast coverage begins |
| 14:21 | Women’s Boat Race |
| 14:36 | Women’s reserve race (Blondie v Osiris) |
| 14:51 | Men’s reserve race (Goldie v Isis) |
| 15:21 | Men’s Boat Race |
This is Channel 4’s first year as the Boat Race broadcaster, taking over from the BBC. Coverage starts at 1:30pm.
The coin toss is worth watching if you are on the embankment. A 200-year-old gold sovereign determines which station each crew rows from, and last year’s toss drew a large crowd. The women’s toss is at 12:15, the men’s at 12:50.
The course, bend by bend
The Championship Course runs 4.25 miles from Putney Bridge to Chiswick Bridge near Mortlake. The start is tide-dependent, timed to catch the incoming flood so the current helps the crews rather than fighting them.
If you are standing on Putney Embankment, you will see the start and the first frantic minute of racing. After that, the crews disappear around the Fulham bend. But the course has five timed checkpoints, and if you know the record splits, you can follow along and tell whether you are watching a fast race.
Here are the segment records for both races.
Men’s segment records
| Checkpoint | Record time | Who set it |
|---|---|---|
| Mile Post | 3:31 | Cambridge 1993 and Oxford 1978 (shared) |
| Hammersmith Bridge | 6:20 | Cambridge 1998 |
| Chiswick Steps | 9:56 | Cambridge 1998 |
| Barnes Bridge | 13:32 | Cambridge 1998 |
| Finish | 16:19 | Cambridge 1998 |
Cambridge’s 1998 crew hold every men’s segment record from Hammersmith Bridge onwards. Their overall time of 16 minutes 19 seconds has stood for 28 years.
Women’s segment records
| Checkpoint | Record time | Who set it |
|---|---|---|
| Mile Post | 4:00 | Cambridge 2017 and Cambridge 2022 (shared) |
| Hammersmith Bridge | 7:06 | Cambridge 2022 |
| Chiswick Steps | 11:15 | Cambridge 2022 |
| Barnes Bridge | 15:13 | Cambridge 2022 |
| Finish | 18:23 | Cambridge 2022 |
Cambridge’s 2022 crew hold every women’s segment record from Hammersmith onwards and share the Mile Post record with the 2017 crew. If the women pass the Mile Post faster than four minutes, you are watching something special.
The men’s Mile Post record is a curiosity: 3 minutes 31 seconds, shared by Cambridge in 1993 and Oxford in 1978, fifteen years apart and never beaten since.
What the bends mean
The Championship Course is not straight. The big bends at Fulham, Hammersmith and Barnes create a tactical advantage for the crew on the inside of each turn.
The crew that wins the coin toss chooses their station (Surrey or Middlesex), and the choice matters. Surrey gives the inside line on the first long bend past Fulham, while Middlesex favours the later bends toward Barnes. The conventional wisdom is that Surrey is the better station: get ahead early and control the race from the front.
Last year Oxford’s women chose Surrey and steered aggressively from the start, drawing multiple warnings from umpire Matthew Pinsent before a blade clash forced the first restart in Women’s Boat Race history. Cambridge won by two and a half lengths anyway. Station choice sets the story of every race, and you will see it play out in real time from the embankment.
Before you arrive
A few practical things the timetable does not tell you.
Chapel Down is running an Airstream bar outside Dulwich College Boathouse on Putney Embankment. Printed souvenir programmes will be on sale along the embankment and at the fan parks. The Half Moon on Lower Richmond Road reopens on race day after an eight-week refurbishment, with free entry all day and live music from the afternoon.
The lightweight and veterans’ races take place on the Friday (3 April) on the same course, with much smaller crowds. If you want to see close racing without fighting through 200,000 spectators, Friday is the insider option.
The Boat Race documentary series Turning The Tide is free to watch on YouTube and worth seeing before Saturday. Episode 3, released last week, follows both presidents in the final build-up and gives you the characters to watch for when the crews walk out.
Saturday’s women’s race at 14:21 is the first on the water and, this year, has the stronger storyline. We will have a full preview of that race later this week.
🚣 Our full Boat Race guide page has everything else you need: where to stand, transport, pubs and all the build-up. We also have an interactive guide to all 36 rowers in this year’s crews.
I like the website and your news coverage in our area, but do we have to use bad gen AI for article imagery? Especially ones like this one that is so grotesquely fake, it diminishes the quality and reputation of the site as a whole.
Appreciate stock shots cost a license fee, and these are supposed to illustrate, not document, but perhaps no imagery is better than imagery that has two boats clashing in an impossible formation! Why is the cox rowing? why are there 10 oars? why is the cox facing the same direction as the crew?? People who will read this article will have a passing knowledge of rowing…
Sites like Unsplash is a royalty free website that provides many free images so long as you provide a photo credit. Or better yet, commission a local photographer to take photographs for you (like you have done for the Putney Embankment story) – even if it costs, if it’s worth using, it’s worth paying for. Authentic imagery will result in more views, longer sessions, more ad revenue.