Oxford and Cambridge meet on the Championship Course from Putney to Mortlake every spring, a rivalry rowed on the Thames tideway since 1856, with the 2027 date confirmed for 11 April.
Oxford and Cambridge meet on the Championship Course, from Putney to Mortlake, on Sunday 11 April 2027, the fixture the two universities have rowed every year since 1856.
Two school friends, one at Oxford and one at Cambridge, arranged the first Boat Race at Henley on 10 June 1829, and it has been rowed annually since, interrupted only by the wars. The women’s race was first contested on 15 March 1927 and became annual in 1964, and since 2015 both crews have rowed the same course on the same afternoon. The Championship Course runs four and a quarter miles, against the stream and around two long bends.
Nothing else in British sport is quite like it. There is no league and no second chance: two crews of students train through a winter for eighteen minutes on a tidal river, watched free from the towpath, and the loser waits a year. More than 250,000 people watch from the banks most years, 270,000 in 2009, one of the largest free sporting events in the country.
The 2027 race is staged by The Boat Race Company and titled the CHANEL J12 Boat Race. Start times follow the tide rather than a broadcast schedule, published closer to the day. A reserve race has been rowed ahead of the main event since 1965, and Cambridge won the men’s race in 2026.