dorney lake

fibre optic, telephony and structured cabling

Dorney Lake Trust is a registered charity set up by Eton College, responsible for the operation of this world-class rowing facility, which is set on a 400-acre site near Windsor. The lake is 2200 metres long with eight lanes, each lane being 13.5 metres wide.

initially, back in early 2005, we were asked to complete the design and installation of a new network infrastructure aimed at supporting the needs of this unique customer, as follows:

Multi-mode fibre optic infrastructure to provide CCTV capability along the length of the course.
Category 5e infrastructure in the Finish Tower to support voice and data requirements.
Copper backbone infrastructure to deliver telephony to the Finish Tower and the Timing Huts along the length of the course.
A separate dedicated copper network to support the course timing system.

in the years following this...

We continued to support Dorney Lake regarding their IT infrastructure, probably most notably when we provided temporary infrastructure for the Bearing Point Rowing World Cup in 2005 and the World Championships in 2006.

Later, following the announcement that London had been successful in its bid to host the 2012 Olympics, Dorney Lake was identified as the intended rowing venue and a main contractor (Morrison) was engaged to undertake a number of developments to satisfy the ‘Olympic’ criteria – eg, a new bridge across the lake at the Finish Tower; the widening of the ‘return lane’, etc. In turn, we were engaged to complete upgrade works to the IT infrastructure and to re-install much of the original cabling which was unavoidably disturbed by the work performed by Morrison.