New Year rowing

I try and get out for a row on New Year's Day simply to say that I did, although here on the south coast of England it never gets really cold because of the Gulf Stream. In New England, considerably south of here, Malcolm on the Openboats Yahoo! group (one of my favourites) reported on his New Year row:

"About 9:00 today I headed off to Kittery, Maine, to go for a New Year's Day row to join nine other people in six boats in a traditional way to start the new year. The temp was about 24°F (-4.4°C) when I left home but had warmed to near freezing in Kittery.
We set off at 11:00 and because of a sharp (& cold) headwind, we headed off into Chauncey Creek for about a mile, where we rafted to a buoy, and spent some time just talking. The forecast was for snow to start at noon; at 12:20 it began to snow, not heavily but there it was. So we "upped anchor" and headed back to the launch ramp.
On the way back I bumped a moored fishing boat and snapped off one of my oar locks. I had to improvise with a piece of line making rowing difficult. The darned of it was that if I stopped to adjust it better, there was enough set to push me into the dock pilings. Lesson learned - bring a spare. The snow was mixed with rain, heavy, wet and wind driven so a trip to the local Weathervane restaurant for warmth, a plate of fried clams and a mug of beer seemed the best idea in the world. Inland it was colder and the snow was deeper, but not as wet and heavy. By the time I got back home there were some four inches of fresh snow in my driveway."