GREAT Britain and Oxford Boat Race cox Morgan Baynham-Williams gave Wye rowers a boost when she coached them ahead of some major races in London this week.

More than 200 Monmouth and Ross rowers are heading to the capital to race over the reverse Boat Race course and on the Olympic rowing lake in four of Europe’s biggest time-trials.

They will launch out onto the Thames and Dorney lake alongside more than 11,000 competitors in the annual Spring time-trial championships, with entries from as far afield as Europe and America.

And Monmouth RC’s men were boosted by coaching from Ross Rowing Club product Morgan with some expert tips to improve their boat speed before heading to London.

The 22-year-old has won three world-U23 medals and steered the senior GB women’s eight in the 2015 European Championships. And last year she received major plaudits for her coxing skills when she guided Oxford’s women to victory over Cambridge on a storm-tossed Thames, which was captured live on BBC1.

The spring time-trial rowing festival kicks off tomorrow (Thursday, March 23) when four rowing eights and three fours from Monmouth School and Haberdashers’ Monmouth School for Girls join the 373-boat Schools’ Head of the River field, before 12 crews from Monmouth Comprehensive School, Ross RC and Monmouth School launch out in the 550-boat National Junior Sculling Head 24 hours later on the Olympic lake.

Monmouth Rowing Club’s men’s eight, who are steered by Cambridge Blue Lizzie Grose, will launch out alongside 3,200 other rowers to race the Tideway Eights Head of the River on Saturday – the world’s oldest time trial rowing race, dating back to 1926.

The men’s eights race will see 363 crews go off at 10-second intervals from Chiswick to Putney, with the Wye boat starting 52nd right behind Cambridge University’s lightweights and one ahead of top Irish club Neptune.

And many of the crew will be racing the next day over the same stretch in the 230-boat Veteran Eights Head, when the club will send out four crews, while Ross have two boats in action.