ST DOGMAELS Community Rowing Club has a new Celtic longboat.

The boat has been donated to the club by village resident Ann Davies in memory of her late sister Dr Sandra Brown, after whom the boat has been named.

“I have been a rowing club member for 30 years and it seemed a fitting thing to do,” said Ann.

“My sister was community council chairman until just before she died and well known in the village and it would be lovely to think that the donation of the new boat will encourage more people to come rowing.

”The naming of the boat after Sandra will keep her name alive and is a fitting tribute to her.”

Sandra died in 2017 at the age of 72 and was an internationally recognised scientific specialist in the field of climate change.

She received a diploma recognizing her contribution to the winning of the 2007 Nobel peace prize which was awarded jointly to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Al Gore Jr for their efforts to highlight man-made climate change and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract it.

The donation of the £10,000 boat - which was blessed by Rev John Bennett of St Marys Church, Cardigan - now means the rowing club has two Celtic longboats and two skiffs.

Ann still rows and races herself at the age of 65 and is hoping to compete in the forthcoming Great River Race along 21.6 miles of the River Thames from London Docklands to Ham in Surrey on September 8.

“We needs a crew of six to compete and if we can get there this time would be my seventh one,” she said.

“It would be great to go in the new boat as it is so much lighter than our older one.”

Anyone interested in rowing can go along to the Moorings at St Dogmaels on most evenings or contact the club directly through its Facebook.