Harvard Crews Race on the Charles Today

Eleven Harvard shells race in the regatta on the Charles today.

The heavyweights take on M.I.T. and a strong Princeton squad, while the varsity lightweights host the Midshipmen from Annapolis. The freshman lights are racing Holy Cross.

At 1 p.m. and 1:20 p.m., the third and fourth freshman heavyweights will row. Then there is a gap of about an hour and a half before the racing resumes at 3 p.m.

Heavyweight coach Harry Parker feels that Princeton has a much better crew this year than it did last season when Harvard broke the Tiger's course record at Lake Carnegie. The Tigers have beaten both Rutgers and Navy this spring, and last week they lost an extremely close race to Pennsylvania while the Harvard heavies were defeating Brown and Rutgers.

M.I.T., however, hasn't done especially well so far," says Parker. The Engineers bowed before Boston University and were shamed on the Charles last weekend by Yale.

"This race is especially important for us," says Parker, "because if we're going to beat Navy and Pennsylvania next week, we'll have to take Princeton first today."

The freshman heavyweights are racing four boats; the first against M.I.T. and Princeton, the second and third against M.I.T. alone, and the fourth against Boston University's third freshman boat.

The Princeton freshmen have beaten Navy, but dropped their race to Pennsylvania last week. Though the Tech freshmen lost to Yale last week, they proved to be a very strong squad during the first part of the race, according to freshman heavyweight coach Ted Washburn.

Washburn has made one slight change in the line-up of the first boat, switching the number two and number seven men.

Varsity lightweight coach Bill Weber is "pretty optimistic" about the chances of beating Navy today "if we row like we rowed last week," when the Crimson downed Dartmouth and M.I.T. Navy has not won a race yet this year.

Navy has traditionally been a late-starting crew. The Middies take to the water for spring work-outs much later than most Eastern schools and are plagued by swells and choppy conditions on the Severn River course at Annapolis.

The third varsity boat will be racing M.I.T. again today. "I wanted to give them a chance to get back," says Weber. The third boat dropped its race to Tech last Saturday by one length.

The three freshman lightweight boats race the Holy Cross heavyweight varsity, junior varsity, and first freshman shells today. Holy Cross introduced crew as a sport only last year, and Harvard provided the crews with their shells.

Last week Holy Cross scored a victory over Worcester Polytech and Lowell Polytech. "It's bit hard to tell what it'll be like," says freshman coach Rick Davis, noting that he has never seen the kind of crews Holy Cross has been rowing against this spring.