List of world records in rowing


The rowing world records are the fastest times set over the international rowing distance of 2000 m.

On water records

Rowing times are strongly affected by weather conditions, and to a lesser extent by water temperature – the majority of these times were set in warm water with a strong tailwind. World best rowing times have also decreased because of improvements in technology to both the boats and the oars, along with improvements in conditioning of the rowers.
Because environmental conditions have a strong impact on boat speed, FISA recognizes world best times instead of world records. A world best time is one recorded on a regatta course that has previously held the World Championships, Olympic Games, or World Cup since 1980. A number of record times were set at the 2005 World Championships held on the Nagara River at Kaizu, Gifu Prefecture, Japan, but due to a fast current caused by heavy rainfall from the remnants of Typhoon Mawar, FISA declared that the race results were not eligible to be considered as world best times.
There is a category for lightweight rowing. For men the crew average, wearing racing kit, cannot exceed and no rower may be over. For women the limits are and.
Hamish Bond and Eric Murray hold the record for most consecutive wins with 69.

Men

The greatest distance rowed in 24 hours is 342 km by Hannes Obreno, Pierre de Loof, Tim Brys, Mathieu Foucaud, Thijs Obreno, Giel Vanschoenbeek, Arjan van Belle and Thibaut Schollaert on the Watersportbaan in Ghent, Belgium on 2–3 October 2014. All eight participants were members of a student rowing club called VSR.
The greatest distance rowed in 1 hour is 17,555 m by the Delftse Studenten Roeiverening Proteus-Eretes during the Hour boat race on 17 December 2017.

Women

Indoor records

These results are based on a standard distance of 2,000 meters.
TypeCategoryTimeSplitNationYearName
SIROpen Men5:35.81:23.9 Australia2018Josh Dunkley-Smith
SIRLightweight Men5:56.71:29.2 Denmark2012Henrik Stephansen
SIROpen Women6:22.81:35.7 Ukraine2017Olena Buryak
SIRLightweight Women6:53.81:43.4 Canada2019Jennifer Casson
IRwSOpen Men5:59.9 Australia2010Nick Wakeford
IRwSLightweight Men6:10.3 Italia2017Andrea Micheletti
IRwSOpen Women6:46.8 United States2006Taliesin Davies
IRwSLightweight Women7:29.7 United States2008Lynn Bender
DIROpen Men5:41.8 New Zealand2012Eric Murray
DIRLightweight Men6:15.6 Great Britain2017Tom Foster
DIROpen Women8:00.6 United States2015Karen Alt
DIRLightweight Women8:10.4 United States2013Elizabeth Sheldon

Note: the standard machine for indoor records is the Concept2 indoor rower. "Split" refers to the average time to complete 500 m.