On July 16th 1986,a Mr John Corin walked into Peter Urens workshop for a repair on his car and due to a logo on his jersey the conversation turned to gigs. Peter already being a keen rower for Cadgwith rowing club and John was interested in their history. John at this time was Commador of Salcombe Cruising club and a very active person with the RNLI, well by the time John left Peters workshop he had agreed to help in every way he could to start a gig club in Mounts Bay.
    We then set about contacting other people we thought may be interested, Peter at that time was rowing with Allan Cargeeg and as they had both voiced thoughts of such an idea during their rowing outings Allan came in on the idea,as did Martin Tregonning Penzance Harbour Master,and another friend Patrick Semmens who had also rowed occasionally.
    In the August a crew from Scillies rowed across to Sennen,this created a lot of interest and during the evening at the Queens Arms at Bottalack we put our idea to some St Just people from these D Alford joined our steering meetings. It was during this period that I told the late Ben Collins the then chairman of Cadgwith Gig Club and a old friend of our idea and introduced him to John Corin, this was the first of many such meetings whilst Ben primed us with facts and figures.
    We were then ready to hold the first of about six steering meetings which we discussed how we would raise enough money to have a gig built, how much money we would require and how we would present our idea at the inaugural meeting. All these initial meetings were held at John Corins house in Newlyn.
    During the summer of 1986 John Adams of Triple S Films had been in Scillies filming the gigs and whilst attending the Newquay weekend in Scillies I renewed our old friendship with him and asked if he could show some of his film at our inaugural meeting. The Inaugural Meeting was planned for November 19th 1986 at 7.30 at the Queens Hotel. This was a very tense moment for all concerned as we had no way of telling what response we would have to our advert which we had placed in the Cornishman the previous week . However to our delight the room filled up.
    With representation from the two main clubs in Cornwall Newquay and Cadgwith which we found most encouraging and have since proved to be very strong allies throughout.After showing the film John Corin and I told theit attendees of the idea of forming Mounts Bay Gig Club, there was an enthusiastic response and so we formed our first committee. The officers chosen were Chairman J. Corin , Vice Chairman D Alford, Secretary Peter Uren, Treasurer Capt Paul Row, and Rowing Secretary Allan Cargeeg.