Open-water or coastal rowing is the relatively new type of rowing, kind of adventure side of this traditional sport. It involves rowing along a sea coast and/or out into the open sea. It is getting popular in Italy, France, Spain and Great Britain, to name a few, and has a steady-growing communities of rowers in these countries. Although coastal rowing can be found in some communities all around the globe, it is still relatively underdeveloped in majority of countries, even those which are coastal oriented and have natural conditions and people with long maritime tradition, like Croatia, Cyprus or Poland.

Coastal rowing is easier to learn than flat-water rowing, due partly to the stability and robustness of the boats which differ from the Olympic-style, fragile and narrow, rowing boats. This type of rowing can be practiced by everyone, with no age or physical condition limitations. It is ideal for novices (first-time rowers) and seniors, as the boats are stable and virtually unsinkable while rowing technique required is very basic. The standard boats used in coastal rowing training and competitions are singles (or solo), doubles and quadruple sculls. Rowing sometimes on choppy water, with a number of buoyed turns included, means that coastal rowing is quite different from the flat-water Olympic-style rowing in a straight line, which adds a whole new dimension to this sport. To become a good coastal rower, a person must be aware of waves, tides and currents, learn about the course's topography and know what to do in case of bad weather.

This project aims to bring together a number of club coaches and sports/managing directors from 4 clubs with the primary objective to teach them new - coastal rowing - skills, mentioned above, which are different than those they already have. These skills, combined with their enthusiasm for this new type of rowing, will help them educate their club members and gain new ones (most of them coming from local schools, but also an adult population) that will train and learn coastal rowing in safe and attractive surroundings. Bringing all generation together, in this project and process, by using the capacities of the local sports clubs and their coaches, will definitely encourage lifetime participation in sport and enhance/promote health oriented physical activity in the respective clubs and consequently their cities/societies. This objective is certainly much needed in modern societies where media attention and huge number of people is focused solely on small number of sports and money-making sports stars, while this type of natural and traditional sports often remain out-of sight. This issue is relevant to all participating clubs because it addresses the problems that all of them face – reluctance to transition from often results-oriented classic rowing to development of new skills for all generations - in coastal rowing - and lack of budget to do it. Since coastal rowing is easier to learn due to the construction of the boats, these boats are also much more accessible and safer for persons with disabilities.

All participants in this project will have to familiarize themselves with FISA coastal rowing rules and regulations, boat rigging, new training methods as well as general international maritime navigation and specific conditions of the naval areas near the rowing clubs boathouses, all of which fall under highly needed and applicable skills. In this project, club’s coaches and sports directors will be crucial by first learning and then teaching youngsters and adults new skills. They will also be supervising coastal rowing activities in their respective clubs and the transition of some current rowers from the field of classic rowing to coastal/open-water rowing.

Principle of good governance is obtained by making sure that sports clubs, here in the project represented by clubs presidents and sports directors/managers, during the project set new policies regarding costal rowing and deliver their new/revised strategic objectives.

Their most important focus in this project won’t be competition and achievements, which are usually their primary tasks, but developing new skills and values that might be more valuable to the large portion of the population and societies in general.