Sailing | Open Four performs well at first fall regatta

The crew team kicked off its fall season at the Textile River Regatta, hosted by UMass Lowell, on Sunday. There were two boats crewed by Tufts at the race, one in the Open Four division and the other in the men’s Club Eight division.

In the Open Four, Tufts placed fourth out of 16 boats and came in third place among collegiate boats with a time of 22:42.56. The Jumbos rowing were junior co-captain bow Krzysztof Danielewicz, senior co-captain Will Ross, first-year Douglas Burt and sophomore stroke Jackson Horwitz, with junior Kasia Gawlas coxing.

Riverside Boat Club took first place, with Bowdoin College pressing in .9 seconds behind. Wentworth Institute of Technology finished in third and Tufts in fourth. The Jumbos finished 4.87 seconds behind Riverside Boat Club, just a little over a boat length between first and fourth place. Wesleyan, a powerhouse in men’s rowing which dominated in the eights category, finished .2 seconds behind the Tufts four.

In the men’s Club Eight, Tufts placed 14th out of 15 boats with a time of 21:49.53. The boat featured sophomore coxswain Maria Karam, senior Lex Clary, juniors Dixon Minnick, Jeffrey Aalberg and Samuel Helrich, sophomores Spencer Moslow, Zhuangchen Zhou and Jonathan Lapadula and freshman John Bailey.

“As a whole, the team is happy with the start to the season,” Ross told the Daily in an email. “Some of the horsepower across the team was missing with two juniors, Chris Rickard and Peter Estes, abroad, as well as freshman Lee Glicklich out with an injury. That said, we were able to shift the lineups around and come out with a good result overall.”

Fall is head race season, with longer races between 5,000 and 6,000 meters compared to the spring’s 2,000 meter sprints. The longer race and staggered starts provided a unique challenge for the Jumbos.

“The Textile Regatta was a head race, which is the standard race format in the fall,” Danielewicz told the Daily in an email. “In a head race, the boats start one after another — much like a time trial in cycling. It can be hard to stay motivated since you don’t always have the competition right beside you, but it makes it that much more rewarding if you manage to pass a boat or two on the course.”

There remains room for improvement. The team has stressed technique and power as it has rebuilt itself over the last couple of years, and over the winter it will be crucial for the team to get stronger.

“There is a lot that can be done technically in the next three weeks to finish out a strong fall season,” Ross said. “That said, our emphasis is on the spring, and to perform well then we’re going to need power. With a long winter ahead of us and a dedicated group of 24 guys, we have the chance to create power that will help us succeed in a way that is unprecedented come spring.”

As the fall season progresses, the team will race against a wide range of competition, including some teams it will face in the spring. The remaining races of the fall season — the Head of the Snake Regatta in Worcester on Oct. 12 and the Head of the Fish Regatta in Saratoga Springs, New York on Oct. 26 — will allow the Jumbos to experiment with different lineups and gain momentum heading into the winter.

“I’m excited for next weekend in Worcester — it’s a bigger race [for collegiate teams], so it’ll give us a chance to see how we stack up with our real competition,” Danielewicz said. “I think we have the potential to do really well in the races coming up, and I’m excited that all the work we’ve put in is coming together.”