Barn Elms Boathouse was broken into and trashed. On the morning of Tuesday November 7th at 06:00, Roehampton University rowers arrived at the boathouse in Barnes to attend their usual morning session. Upon entering the tank room-- where weight training and technique practice take place-- they saw that the room had been left in a state of complete disarray; weights, oars and benches had been thrown into the water and a couple of beer cans littered the scene. Mike Benson (a rowing coach at Barn Elms) said, “I don’t think it’s a huge leap of logic to assume they [the beer cans] might have had some involvement.”

Management at Barn Elms was glad to discover that there was no serious damage wrought on any equipment or the room itself, bar a few chips in the tank’s stonework where heavy metal weights had been launched into it. The products of the event, however, did take 2 days to address: the tank had to be drained, scrubbed of weight rust stains and refilled, and the equipment was heaved out and left to dry. This affected some of the weekly sessions as the room was not usable.

The club still doesn’t know the identity of any of the culprits nor the reasoning behind the strange and destructive act, and can only assume that it occurred in the long stretch of time between 21:00 and 06:00 that night. Unfortunately, small mistakes, like the tank room door accidentally being left unlocked that evening, often precipitate opportunities for crime.