A PUB landlord and some of his regulars are planning to row an historic lifeboat from Ripon to York this weekend to raise funds for Whitby lifeboat station.

The Whitby Historic Lifeboat Trust is organising the row, involving a William Riley rowing lifeboat dating back to 1911, which featured in the Queens Jubilee flotilla on the Thames in 2012.

Jim Hardie, landlord of the Blue Bell pub in Fossgate, York, and regulars including Stephen Drury, Marie Addy, Steve Morrison and Mitch Pollington will be amongst the oarsmen, joined by others from Whitby, including Graham Chaddock and Whitby lifeboat cox Peter Thomson.

The boat, accompanied for part of its journey by cyclists and canoeists, will first be rowed along Ripon Canal, then the River Ure and finally the Ouse.

The row starts at 9.30am on Saturday at the racecourse marina on Ripon Canal, and is set to reach Boroughbridge by about 1.30pm, Aldwark by 3pm and Linton Lock at Linton on Ouse by 4pm, when it will halt for the day.

The rowers are due to set off again from Linton Lock at 9.30 am on Sunday, reaching Newton on Ouse by 10.30am, Beningbrough by 11.30am and Nether Poppleton by 1pm.

The Lifeboat and support team plan to moor up at Kings Staith in York at about 1.30pm to organise a display and collection for the lifeboat charity, the RNLI, before departing at 3pm on the final lap of their journey to Bishopthorpe.

The row is not the Blue Bell's first. In 2011, the regulars and landlord rowed the three lakes, Windermere, Coniston and Ullswater and they have previously completed a 60-mile row from Newcastle to Whitby.

The landlord was also amongst the rowers when the William Riley joined 1,000 other boats in the largest flotilla seen on the River Thames in 200 years to mark 60 years of the Queen’s reign.