Accidents Will Happen

In 1981, a Harvard boat his the Eliot St. Bridge.

Not a terrible occurrence, except if you consider that the boat was the men's championship eight, the race was the Head of the Charles, and the circumstances involved two other eights and questions of yielding the right of way to a passing boat.

You also have to look at the fact that the encounter resulted in Harvard's starting order for the following year being 31st, (28 places behind where the Crimson will be tomorrow), and in Yale's first eight losing an our and not finishing the event.

But the entanglement is not as scandalous as it sounds at first Crews and especially coxswains going into an event as big as tomorrow's regatta no longer are surprised by encounters with the Charles River's concrete elements. They do their best to avoid them however.

It's not a very wide river, so everybody wants to get ahead at the same time, explains MIT senior Barrett Caldwell, who has coxed for the Engineers since freshman year.

While official regulations dictate that an overtaking boat has the right of way and that the boat being passed must move to the right, the narrowness and curves of the Charles, combined with the generally chaotic brouhaha on the banks, often make this difficult.

"The problems come with traffic," says Harvard senior Geoffrey Knauth a cox. "Sometimes it's clear sailing, sometimes three, sometimes four, sometimes even five boats are trying to go through the same arch."

Minute Maid

The penalty for not yielding to a passing boat is 60 seconds added to finishing time, enough to add 10 or 15 places to finishing order. "That order of start last year," says Knauth. "just goes to show you what a collision can do to your order of start."

In 1982 most spectacular crash, the Clark University's women's varsity eight hit the Eliot St. Bridges on a sharp curve and totaled the bow of a two week old $7,000 shell.

The crew did not hear the commands and failed to negotiate the turn recalls Clark Coach Carla Odiaga, adding that the inexperienced cox, working without a speaker system in the boat, was trying to pass another shell as she negotiated the turn.

Turns are often downfall of experienced and rookie coxswains alike. Joe Dougherty, an MIT sophomore, coxed in the youth eights competition when he was a senior at Atlantic City High School. In the four-mile odyssey, the boat passed two other crews, then "two of them crashed in front of me into bridges," then a boat just ahead moved so the Atlantic City boat could pass, then careened into yet another span.

Dougherty's eight made it to the finish line without mishap, but he particularly recalls Weeks Bridge as "that turn when you have to turn under a bridge that's tough."

Other distractions along the way include the crowds that line the river banks. Atypically for a cox, Dougherty says. "I work better when people are yelling," and says that the oarsmen "know when they're coming up to a bridge because they can hear the people above them. Most other oarsmen and coxes agree, however that they more or less tune out the cheering and concentrate on the task at hand.

Being Heard

That task is made caster by the prevalence systems in shells without which heavily populated areas like Eliot St. make it virtually impossible for rowers to hear commands from the front of the boat at the trickly turn.

As for the Clark varsity sound is key for this year contest. Says Coach Odiaga. "This year we definitely have a speaker system in the boat our bow was pretty much demolished."