When Penny Chuter, who has died aged 82, began to mess about in a rowing dinghy as a toddler and with water sports as a teenager, rowing clubs were for men only. The European Championships and the Olympics were open only to men, and the council of Britain’s Amateur Rowing Association (ARA) hardly ever saw a woman at its table.
Now clubs welcome female members. The world championships and the Olympics offer equal numbers of open events for women and men (as does the Henley Royal Regatta), and the headcount of women who row has grown enormously in schools, universities, clubs, competitions and worldwide.
Much of this transformation is because of Penny; she became a tough sculler, an inventive coach and an effective trainer for British Rowing (as the ARA is now called) and World Rowing’s development programme.
The Chuter family lived by the Thames at Laleham, then in Middlesex, now Surrey, and Penny rowed across the river to primary school from the age of five. She joined Laleham Skiff and Punting Club and won the first of her 27 punting championships aged 15 in 1957, and the first of 21 skiff championships in the following year, in singles, doubles and mixed categories.
She found little coaching material available at that time, so she sought help from Neville Milroy, “Jumbo” Edwards and Stuart “Sam” Mackenzie, an Australian who won the Diamond Sculls at Henley in six consecutive years. British coaches were obsessed with style, so Penny studied technical books by athletes such as Gordon Pirie, Herb Elliott and Derek Ibbotson.
Penny aimed to compete in the 1960 Olympics in Rome, until she found out that Olympic regattas were for men only. She won a silver medal in 1962 at the women’s European Championships, her best result in five entries from 1960 to 1964. With no money and minimal support from the ARA, she travelled alone to east European regattas, carrying her oars into Berlin’s Soviet zone through Checkpoint Charlie.
Penny was born in Dunfermline to Gladys Jackman, a swimming champion who was selected for the 1936 Olympics, but did not go because she had no financial support, and Dick Chuter, who worked in films and moved his family to Laleham after wartime service with the Royal Navy. After leaving school Penny taught PE at Midhurst grammar school and at a comprehensive in Reading, specialising in exercise physiology and strength training, and later learned boat rigging and gearing, which earned her the nickname “Rigger Mortis”.
She then worked for the Bank of England as an audio typist until the ARA hired her to complete the coaching award scheme started by Bob Janoušek, the men’s chief coach. Penny was soon coaching Britain’s women’s squad. But in 1978 she guided Jim Clark and John Roberts to a silver medal at the world championships in New Zealand, breaking the taboo of women coaching men.
Two years previously she took the women’s team to Montreal to the first Olympic regatta for women, where she was shocked by the apparent effects of doping on the results. Her medal successes in world championships included the men’s eight in 1981, the pair Beryl Crockford and Lin Clark in 1985 and the lightweight women’s four in 1986.
But success on the water was not always matched by relations ashore. The changes in her ARA job description did not clarify whether each new title indicated promotion or demotion.
A happier place was World Rowing, where Penny found like-minded souls such as the development director Thor Nilsen and she joined the women’s commission in 1983 and the competition commission in 1985. She was influential at increasing the distance rowed by women from 1,000m to 2,000m, making racing conditions fairer, introducing a series of World Cup regattas and running development camps.
In 1994 she moved to Oxford University Boat Club as the chief coach, but was again tangled in controversy when Cambridge were enjoying a run of successes. Three years later she moved to Sport England and in 2002 retired to Cornwall from the home she had shared in Crowmarsh, Oxfordshire, with Edward Sturges, an oarsman, who died in 1996.
In Cornwall she indulged her passion for sailing. She was a founder of Carrick rowing club in Falmouth and coached at Flushing & Mylor Pilot Gig Club, guiding them to a silver medal in the gig championships in 2019. She also took part in discussions on whether rowers of ocean-rowing gigs should handle their oar with palm underneath or wrist over the top of the oar handle.
Penny was appointed OBE for services to rowing in 1989, and both British Rowing’s medal of honour and World Rowing’s distinguished services medal in 2006.
Her sister Scilla predeceased her; she is survived by a niece, Charlotte, and a nephew, Toby.
• Penny (Penelope) Ann Chuter, rowing coach, born 28 July 1942; died 16 November 2024
