Have you ever seen a boat with wings?
Have you ever seen a boat "fly" against heavy tailwinds?
If you went to see the women's crew races down in Boston this weekend, this is precisely what you saw. That is, if, and only if, you were watching the Dartmouth crews out there.
Battling the pesky and otherwise putrid weather conditions, the rowers scored some big wins this weekend against both Ivy-League rival Yale University and host team Boston University.
While the first varsity boat swept both races, the second boat edged out Yale and trailed BU. The third boat continued the trend, walking through Yale's third varsity in a dual race.
"It was so much fun," Wendi Potter '96 said. "We made a big lineup change and the boat all of a sudden had wings. We finally rowed as a team, and the boat just picked up out there."
But on a dreary Sunday afternoon in mid-April, mother nature just had to make things a little challenging for the women.
"The race conditions were awful. There was a heavy tailwind and lots of whitecaps on the Charles," Potter said.
But as the wind picked up and the chop got bigger, the women did what all the best crews do at times like these -- they used the poor race conditions to their advantage.
"We knew that the winner of this race would be the crew that kept the most composure ... and for the most part we stayed pretty calm throughout the race," Potter said. "We would crash to one side every now and then, but then we'd get the boat set again on the very next stroke."
From start to finish, Dartmouth set a pace that kept the Elis and the Terriers struggling to keep up.
"Yale just didn't handle the conditions all that well. In general, Yale's a tough crew and they beat Radcliffe by nine seconds last weekend, but I think we really stepped it up and rowed a really solid race against them," Kathleen Eibl '98 said.
In the first varsity race, Dartmouth jumped ahead right off the start and continued to build on its lead for the entire 2,000 meter race. The team ended up crossing the finish line nearly a full boat length ahead of both Yale and BU.
In the third varsity race, Dartmouth had Yale eating its wake as it notched a victory across open water.
Dartmouth's first novice boat beat out BU but lost to Yale, while the second novice boat did exactly the opposite, beating Yale and losing to BU.
With key lineup changes resulting in better rowing and bigger wins, this weekend's races seemed to mark a turning point for the women's crew teams.
"This was the first race of the season when, with 30 strokes to go, we all knew we would win ... and that's a feeling I hope we get more and more familiar with," Potter said. "Going into the season, I knew we had a lot of potential and I think we're just starting to tap into it now."
Next weekend, the teams hope to carry their momentum back to Boston as they take on Radcliffe and Syracuse on the Charles. Equipped with their new-found wings, the women's crews are ready to soar from here.
