The women's and men's crew teams had mixed results against strong competition and in fierce weather conditions at the Candian Henley last week in Ontario.
The women's top performance was in the 500-meter-dash eights where they finished second in their heat, qualifying for the final.
But one rower came off her seat during the final, forcing the boat to finish the race with only seven rowers, and it finished last. In a race that short, "there's not whole lot of time to make up the difference," said women's crew Coach Barb Kirch.
"We came in last, but I think we would have been able to do a lot better because we didn't really come in such a far last," said coxswain Vanessa Santaga '96.
The women failed to qualify for the finals in the other three events that they raced, a 2,000-meter-eights, a 2,000-meter-fours with coxswain and a 2,000-meter quad.
Canadian Henley features an unusual elimination process where in many events only the winner of each heat advances. In most intercollegiate races, the top two or three boats advance.
Since Canadian Henley is not an intercollegiate event, Dart-mouth competes as the Dartmouth Rowing Club.
Because of the tough elimination process and the fierce competition, the women weren't disappointed with their finish.
"I don't think really we went in with any specific expectations, since it's not the teams that we're used to rowing against," Santaga said.
Kirch said, "They probably had some of their best rows of the summer, but it wasn't nearly enough to put us in the finals."
The men's team was slightly more successful, winning the lightweight sprint eights. "That was probably our best hopes of a win anyways," said men's Coach Dick Grossman.
"We rowed it well and I think it was one of those events that good rowing and hard rowing was going to win and I think we did both of those," Grossman said.
Results for the mens heavyweights were mixed.
The heavyweight pairs finished third in their heat, failing to qualify for the finals. The heavyweight fours won their heat but finished last in the finals.
"I didn't think we rowed up to our potential in the final race, but we had never practiced together as a four going in so you get what you work for," said Dan Perkins '97.
Ted Murphy '94 rowed fours with three men from Harvard, winning two events that included a boat with four members of the Canadian national team.
Murphy's boat will try out for the United States national team this fall.
