Jumbos crews among hundreds at Head of the Charles

The men's and women's crew teams hit the Charles River this weekend for their most important race of the fall season. Hundreds of crews from around the world gathered at the Head of the Charles for this almost three mile race.

The women's crew team had two boats in the races this year. The Varsity-A boat raced in the Collegiate Eight on Sunday while the Varsity-B boat raced in the Club Eight a day earlier.

The Varsity-A squad put on a strong showing in the Collegiate Eight race, finishing with a time of 17:49.20, which placed it 15th out of 38 teams. Queen's University of Canada finished first with a time of 16:47:32.

"The Collegiate Eight race features schools from Division I to Division III, which is good because it enables us to see a lot of the schools we will see during the spring season," senior captain Maggie Denes said.

The team's performance was impressive considering the natural obstacles.

"It's a really hard course to cox," Denes said. "It's a really curvy river. There are lots of turns and lots of boats. Also, because there are so many bridges, it is really hard to pass."

Denes also gave high praise to senior coxswain Beth Grosart for her performance and attitude, which kept the team going.

"The entire time we were rowing she kept saying we could do it, we could do it," Denes said. "Towards the end she told us how many strokes we needed to pass the boat ahead of us."

Grosart's praiseworthy coxing coupled with her encouraging attitude proved to be just what the A Boat needed. Coming up to the final bridge, the A squad knew what it had to do, pulled together, and passed the Army boat.

"We were chasing them the entire race," Denes said. "It felt great."

In Saturday's race, the Varsity-B boat managed a 35th place finish out of 42 finishers. Coming off of a strong start, the Varsity-B boat was able to make a strong pass, overpowering the Hamilton crew to finish with a time of 19:08.97.

The Club Eight is seen as a much more difficult race because it features club teams with older, strong, more experienced women from all over the world.

"It's really hard to place well in that race," Denes said. "But they had a wonderful race, and when they got off the water, they were really, happy about how they did."

The women's team, however, was not the only team pleased with how it performed this weekend, as the men's teams raced two firm races as well.

On Sunday, the University of Minnesota took the men's Collegiate Eight first place spot with a time of 14:54.17. Tufts' varsity boat finished 24th out of 40 competitors with a time of 16:09.31.

"We passed the Washington College crew at the Western Ave. Bridge, clashing oars and pushing them out of the way," junior captain Robbie Goldstein said.

At the Harvard Boathouse, Tufts led the pack of Belfast Crew, UNH, UMass Amherst and Washington College. Despite the Jumbos' hard fighting around the turns and the bends, the Belfast crew took a tight line on the Eliot Curve and passed Tufts within the last mile.

On Saturday, the Second Varsity (2V) boat looked to redeem itself after last year's last place finish. With a time of 16:32.47 in the Crew Eight, the Jumbos earned a more than respectable 28th place finish out of a total of 53 crews finishing. The squad's mark was only 1:19 off the first place boat of Melbourne University Boat Club (15:13.093).

The Second Varsity boat beat out rivals Bates, Boston College and University of New Hampshire, and finished just 1.2 seconds behind Worchester Polytechnic Institute.

"We raced some ridiculously powerful teams from across the world," sophomore Jonathan Gais said. "We took one of the most aggressive lines for the course, which put us in a position to go out and really put some power behind our oars with the confidence that our coxswain was taking the best course he could."

Goldstein was caught up in the atmosphere of the event.

"This was the most fun I have ever had at the Head of the Charles. The constant battling and fighting back made the race exciting to watch--and to race."