Foot of the Charles

The Foot of the Charles was yesterday and consisted of three (women's) races - varsity 4+, novice 8+, and varsity 8+. The results of the V8 race suggest that the entrants were something other than the top V8s, so I would treat the V4 and N8 races as the priority races.

Radcliffe and MIT were the only lightweight boats in the regatta, with Radcliffe besting MIT in both the V4 and N8 races. In the V4 race, Radcliffe was 9th out of 28 boats, 20 seconds out of third place. MIT was 56 seconds off of Radcliffe's pace. In the N8 race, Radcliffe finished 12th out of 24 boats, with MIT two places and 37 seconds back. That seems like a fairly good result for MIT. Both MIT and Radcliffe were able to enter N8 B boats, which has to be seen as a sign of strength for both teams. The V8 race was won by UNH, which beat two Radcliffe light 8s, a Radcliffe heavy 8, and an MIT light 8. It seems unlikely to me that UNH, two lightweight Radcliffe boats, and MIT lights would beat Radcliffe's top heavyweight boat, so I'm not sure what was going on there. Perhaps the UNH and lightweight boats (combining after the 4+ race) were the top boats and the heavyweight Radcliffe boat was something else. The first MIT light boat was 9 seconds off of Radcliffe, which would be another good result for MIT. If you know about this race, please drop me a line.