The Big Green rowers were unable to match the world-class performance produced by the winning crews of this year's Head of the Charles, held over the past weekend in Cambridge. The first two-day race in the 33- year history of the event saw Dartmouth finish in the middle of the pack for most races. A notable exception to this trend was the Heavyweight 8 crew, which was the last boat in the Championship 8 division. The women's championsip 8 finished 12th in their race. "With Dartmouth's stronger oarsmen in other crews or on off-terms, this crew was undergunned in this top-level event, but raced hard and had fun," heavyweight coach Scott Armstrong said.
The US National Rowing team won that event, followed by Brown, Vesper Boating Club, Princeton and Harvard.
The heavyweight eight's troubles reflect a common pattern in this fall's rowing team. Since the spring is the primary rowing season, Dartmouth oarsmen typically take leave-terms or foreign study options in the Fall and Winter. Coupled with injuries to top oarsmen, this leaves the team without its strongest competitors. Lightweight Coach Richard Grossman noted that "six of our top ten oarsmen are unavailable to us for the fall's racing season."
On the women's side, the team was pleased with the 12th place finish because there were only four other collegiate boats ahead of the Big Green.
"We raced pretty well and had a great time rowing past the Dartmouth crowds on all of the bridges," Katherine Eibl '98 said,
Despite these disadvantages, the Championship 4 heavyweight boat finished 5th of the 35 competitors.
"They had a strong performance in a difficult race, but they needed to row at a higher rate to break into the medals," Armstrong said.
Grossman thought the highlight of the weekend was the lightweight freshman crew's eighth place finish in the Youth Eight event. As the only lightweight crew in the event, they did an outstanding job against crews who had a considerable advantage in size and strength. That race was won by N.U.R.A.
Another impressive lightweight was Jamie Peschel '99. Commenting on his 6th place finish, Grossman said,"Jamie is one of the top young lightweight scullers in the country."
The lightweight four earned the 16th spot in their race. Grossman was pleased with this finish in the middle of the pack.
Far less encouraging was the lightweight eight's position as 19 of 33 boats.
"We had a tough time with cold, choppy conditions during warm-ups and just never got comfortable on the water," Drew Mowery '00 said. The women's freshman lightweight team had a stronger performance than the men, finishing in fifth place in the Women's Youth 8 competition.
