ROWING in Marlow was dealt a second hefty blow over Christmas - with thousands of pounds worth of metal parts being stolen from another eight boats.

About 20 of 30 boats at Longridge activity centre have now been damaged, with some of the older vessels likely to be written off.

Thieves apparently struck on either Christmas Day or Boxing Day - about a week after £12,000 worth of aluminium riggers were stolen from the Quarry Wood Road site in a separate incident.

The latest theft saw riggers stolen from boats belonging to Sir William Borlase’s Grammar School and Longridge itself.

Centre director Amanda Foister said: “It’s so frustrating and we’ve got to improve security now. We need some help and advice to make the site safer...Maybe we need barb wire and dogs.

“It hurts for this to happen twice so close together. Each boat has a different rigger so you can’t just go down to the shop and buy one.

“Because our boats are so old you’d have to have them custom made and it’s just not worth it. It’s going to be a couple of thousand pounds worth of expense and we won’t be able to replace the boats until April or May.”

“Unfortunately we bought some CCTV cameras but the firm we bought them off went bust before they installed them...If there a lovely firm out there that could donate some time to install them that would help enormously.”

In the previous incident, between December 16 - 19, sixty riggers were taken from ten boats at Longridge, belonging to Great Marlow School Rowing Club.

This left rising stars such as twins Ellie and Bethany Osborn, 15, who are aiming for the Great Britain junior squad, unable to train (see link below).

Following the latest theft, Longridge feared its evening and weekend classes would have to be suspended, but Marlow Rowing Club has apparently offered the use of some of its boats to keep youngsters in the water.