Boat Races

At New London. Except for the Harvard-Yale football game, the greatest event of the year for Harvard or Yale men is Race Day at New London. It is not only the traditional boat race (that started back in 1852) that lures every alumnus who can get away for a day from the serious pursuits of life, but also the fun of wading through the broken glass in the Mohican Hotel and shouting long-forgotten nicknames through the narrow streets of Connecticut's famed old whaling port.

There last week, with the same conviviality and commotion of 75 Race Days before it, an undefeated Harvard crew met an undefeated Yale crew for the four-mile race on the Thames--upstream this year from the railroad bridge to Bartlett's Cove. It was the first time since 1934 that either college had an undefeated crew. Harvard was the favorite because: 1) it had defeated every major crew in the East this spring (Navy, Pennsylvania, Rutgers, Syracuse, Princeton, Cornell, Columbia and M.I.T.); 2) its boating had remained unchanged all season; 3) it had as stroke James Fletcher ("Spike") Chace, who had beaten Yale twice before, had paced only one losing race in two years and is generally recognized as one of the greatest strokes in the history of U. S. rowing. Yale had only two seasoned oarsmen in its boat, had changed its boating many times, had a less imposing string of victories: over Columbia, Pennsylvania, Cornell, Princeton, Syracuse.

Yale Grads--sprinkled on the banks, the observation train and the decks of the million-dollar flotilla of yachts--yelled themselves hoarse as Ed Leader's crew shot out in front getting away from the stake boats. But that was the only time it was in front. In as pretty a race as has been seen on the Thames in years, both shells moved along as one--the Yale bow stubbornly clinging to the Harvard stern -- until beyond the three-mile mark. There Yale made a courageous challenge, moved up almost neck & neck with the smooth-moving Harvard boat. But the spurt was not good enough. The crimson crew, with its short leg & arm stroke taught them by Washington-trained Tom Bolles, made its first spurt of the day, darted over the finish line--victor by a little over a length.

The time was 20 min. 20 sec., a full 18 seconds slower than the upstream record which Harvard set last year, but the 50,000 spectators who witnessed the race agreed that they had seen one of the finest crews in rowing history and one of the greatest stroke oars of all time. Spike Chace, son of a Park Avenue physician, rowing his last race for Harvard, was the hero of the day. His name was bracketed with that of William ("Foxey") Bancroft (1878) and Gerry ("Killer") Cassedy (1933), the only two other oarsmen in Harvard annals who ever set the beat for three victories in a row over Yale. Having won the freshman and junior varsity races in the morning and the combination race the evening before, Harvard registered a clean sweep over Yale for the first time since 1916.

At Poughkeepsie. Long before Harvard or Yale had a shell there were crew races at Poughkeepsie. As far back as 1839 local barrel-makers and brewers engaged in regattas on the Hudson against salty crews from down the river, showed such prowess that Poughkeepsie soon became the centre of U. S. rowing. Most famed crew race of the kerosene light era took place at Poughkeepsie in 1865 between the Stranger (whose crew were employes of local cooperages), and a Manhattan crew called the Biglins, over a five-mile course for a $6,000 purse and the U. S. championship. From the river banks 20,000 excited spectators saw the Biglins foul the Stranger. When victory was awarded to the Stranger, a mob of enraged rooters chased the judges into the Poughkeepsie Hotel. The judges reversed their decision. Says the WPA Dutchess County guide: "For days before and after this race the town seethed with unprecedented brawls and disturbances."

After that, crew racing dwindled in popularity. At the turn of the Century Poughkeepsie became a rowing centre again. Harvard and Yale had resigned from the old Rowing Association of American Colleges to stage an exclusive race of their own, but the rest of the members decided to start an annual regatta, open to all on the wide straight course at Poughkeepsie.

Last week 20,000 spectators gathered on the banks of the Hudson to watch the 40th rowing of the Intercollegiate Regatta. There was no million-dollar flotilla. Most alumni of eastern colleges, tired of watching their crews trounced by West Coast oarsmen, stayed at home. Few Western alumni bothered to come East. But what the regatta lacked in glamour and social prestige, it made up for in the excitement of its varsity race. In a driving rain, an inspired Navy crew, whose coach, Charles ("Buck") Walsh, had been hospitalized two days before after falling down a flight of stairs and fracturing his spine, outrowed the co-favorites, Washington and California. They not only broke the six-year winning streak of the Far West but broke the course record as well. A length ahead at the three-mile mark, the Midshipmen valiantly held off California's closing drive, finished a half-length in front--in 18 min. 19 sec. So fast was the race that California, Washington and Columbia, who followed Navy in that order, broke the record too. Propped up on his stomach in the Vassar Hospital, Coach Walsh beamed with delight.

In the Washington boat house, bespectacled Tom Bolles, who had come to Poughkeepsie to root for his alma mater, was beaming too. His undefeated Harvard crew had drubbed Navy earlier in the season. They might now well claim the mythical college rowing championship of the U. S.

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