The Dartmouth men’s heavyweight crew team traveled to Worcester, Massachusetts, last weekend for the Eastern Sprints Regatta, where the Big Green finished 14th overall out of the pool of 18 crews for the Rowe Cup. First varsity eight took 12th place, while the second, third and fourth varsity eights all came in ninth in their divisions.
The 18 crews were split into heats of six, and finish times in the preliminary determined which boats qualified for the grand final, which consisted of the top six finishers overall, and the petit final, which included the next fastest six boats. Each of Dartmouth’s heavyweight boats raced in the regatta’s petit final.
The first varsity eight entered and finished the Eastern Sprints as the 12th seed.
The Big Green came fourth in its heat of six but 12th overall in the first race of the day with a time of 5:47.500.
The boat just made the cut to participate in the petit final, where it finished in a nearly identical time of 5:47.379.
“We rowed much better in the morning, and then the conditions changed,” Ryan O’Hanlon ’17 said. “The conditions got a little quicker, but we rowed much worse in the afternoon. We just had a rough race, and it’s not a good time to have a bad race.”
Though Dartmouth beat two of its competitors in the first race, the Big Green was far behind the field in the second; the first boat finished slightly over seven seconds behind the 11th place crew from University of Pennsylvania in the petit final.
The second boat fared better, finishing eighth in the first race of the day and ninth overall.
“The coolest thing is that we went in with no expectations,” Nevin Cunningham ’17 said. “We just went out and tried to do as well as we could.”
The Big Green raced in the first heat of six and took third with a time of 5:47.755. In the petit final, the boat completed the course in 5:48.562, good enough for a top-10 finish.
“Our race in the heat was really good, and the final was also good, there was just more exhaustion,” Cunningham said. “It just wasn’t as sharp, we had some trouble putting together the last bit of the race.”
As only 14 third varsity eight boats raced in the Eastern Sprints, the third boat competed against just four other crews in its first race of the afternoon.
Some teams can only field one or two boats due to limited roster sizes, coxswain Cameron O’Reilly ’17 said. Having more boats, however, can benefit the team overall since team points determine final standings.
The third boat finished eighth in its first race of the day with a time of 5:52.578. The finish qualified them for the petit final, where they placed third for ninth overall.
The team, O’Reilly noted, beat some crews that they saw earlier this season, like Columbia University.
The fourth varsity eight competed in a field of just 12 boats, helping Dartmouth secure extra points for its eventual team finish.
“What it really means is that the program has a lot of depth,” O’Reilly said. “That bodes well for the future in that we have a lot of bodies to work with and a lot of people to develop.”
The Big Green qualified 10th overall with a time of 6:05:036. In the petit final, Dartmouth again claimed ninth, finishing five seconds faster.
The team now prepares for the IRA National Championship, where Dartmouth will face some of the country’s best crews. The regatta begins May 30 in Mercer Lake, New Jersey.
