As the campus emptied out this past weekend and flocks of football fans headed for Boston, the women's crew team traveled to Saratoga Springs, N.Y. for the Head of the Fish regatta.
The 2.5-mile head race, held on Fish Creek, was the women's second race of the year. Roughly 30 teams attended the regatta.
Dartmouth was represented in the women's division by six boats overall. The pair and double finished in first place. One eight placed third and the other eight seventh, while the two fours finished second and eleventh.
The experience at the Fish was unique for the women in regards both to their opponents and the lineups they entered. Other boats in the races were from "schools we're not use to racing," co-Captain Kim Sanderson '96 said. Among these opponents were Amherst, Williams and the University of Toronto.
Typically the women row eights and occasionally fours. The entry of the double and pair allowed the team to "try something different," Coach Barb Kirch said.
Sanderson said one advantage to this was that "everyone got racing experience ... which is always good."
Despite the experience gained from the race, however, some rowers were frustrated both by the weather conditions and what seemed to be a lack of professionalism on the part of the race committee.
One of the eights had to protest because the starting commands were given incorrectly. As a result of this error the boat's time was inaccurate and its finish in the race was drastically affected. After the protest this mistake was corrected but not without a bit of disfavor on the part of the rowers.
Reactions to the team's overall results were mixed.
"We went with the hope of winning more than we did," Kirch said. "It's good that we went. We did place in the top three" in all the events entered, she said. "We did accomplish what we wanted to, but we could have done better."
Sanderson said that the next step is to take "what we did over the weekend" and learn from it as the team prepares for their final fall race, the Princeton Chase.
Kirch said the team plans to enter two eights and three or four fours in this race. The Chase will take place on Lake Carnegie in Princeton on Nov. 12.
