artmouth boats turned in several top-10 finishes in the varsity four and novice eight races as the Big Green women's crew completed its fall schedule at Foot of the Charles Regatta on Saturday on the Charles River in Cambridge, Mass.
The trip south to Cambridge marks the second time the Big Green has raced at the Charles this fall. Dartmouth competed in the Head of the Charles Regatta several weeks earlier, considered one of the most important races of the fall season.
The racing began early, with the varsity four competition starting off at around 8:30 a.m on Saturday. Five Dartmouth boats raced in the 58-crew field, rowing in a 2.5 mile course with relatively flat conditions despite some heavy rain.
"There was basically a torrential downpour during the race; that made it kind of crazy," captain Kate Harney '09 said. "But the water was perfectly flat -- it was nice to race in."
Making it even harder was the fact that the Dartmouth team did not have a lot of experience in four-seat races. In fact, the Big Green was only able to put in a couple of weeks worth of practice in preparation for Saturday.
"For the past two weeks we've been in pairs training, and then we moved to fours," Harney said. "It's made it a very good, personal experience to prepare for the fours because we weren't used to it."
"The entire varsity team raced in fours," Harney said. "I feel like we did really well. It was a strong showing."
The Dartmouth A boat set the pace with a seventh-place finish in a time of 14:38.4, followed closely by the B boat in 10th place with a time of 14:48.4.
The C boat crossed the line in 15:12.3, good enough for 17th place, while the Dartmouth D boat finished 28th in 15:25.7. The Dartmouth E boat managed a 49th place finish out of 58 boats in 16:04.1, higher than many other schools' B units.
Brown's A boat won the race by a solid margin of seven seconds with a mark of 14:15.5. The Brown squad dominated the competition, entering five boats that all finished in the top 22.
Dartmouth entered just two boats into the novice eights event, but the Big Green crews yielded good results. With a moderate tail current, the Big Green novice A boat crossed the line fourth in 14:04.6.
The Dartmouth novice B, consisting entirely of walk-ons, was the second fastest B boat in the field and placed 14th out of 33 boats overall with a time of 14:59.1.
This placement is even more impressive in light of the fact that the novice B crew topped many crews using all recruited rowers.
The strength of the novice program is a good sign for the future of Dartmouth crew.
"The fact that we haven't brought up novices up to varsity is going to really help them come together as a team," Harney said. "In the spring, we are going to have a dominant freshmen team who will really be able to contribute down the road."
Like the varsity fours, the novice eight race was also dominated by the Brown crews. The Bears' A boat won by nearly 22 seconds over second place Harvard, notching a time of 13:34.6.
Dartmouth crew will return to action in the spring but not before it departs on an annual winter training trip. This year, the Big Green will be rowing in Austin, Texas.
