The Middlebury College rowing team in the 2007 Regatta.Spectators lining the bank of the Charles River in 2003Presentation Brothers College, Irish crew, competing in Alumni 8 in 2011.Queen's University Belfast, a crew from Northern Ireland, racing in the Head of the Charles in 2003Kennedy School women's team outside the Weld Boathouse preparing to row the Head of the Charles in 1996, though that year the race was cancelled due to bad weather.
The Head of the Charles Regatta, also known as HOCR, is a rowinghead race held on the penultimate complete weekend of October (i.e., on the Friday that falls between the 16th and the 22nd of the month, and on the Saturday and Sunday immediately afterwards) each year on the Charles River, which separates Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts United States. It is the largest 3-day regatta in the world, with 11,000 athletes rowing in over 1,900 boats in 61 events. According to the Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau, the three-day event brings 225,000 people to the Greater Boston area and $72 million to the local economy.[2]
The last races of the Regatta are generally the most prestigious: Championship 4s, and Championship 8s (both men and women). Championship sculling events (1x/single and 2x/double) race on Saturday afternoon. The Championship events usually include U.S. National Team athletes, as well as national team athletes from other top rowing nations.
The competitive field includes individual and team competitors from colleges, high schools, and clubs from nearly all American states and various countries. The 2006 field included rowers from China, South Africa, Croatia, Ireland, and the Netherlands. The age of athletes spans from 14 to 85 years old with experience levels from novice to Olympic. In 2007, approximately 10% of the field was international.
—Susan Saint Sing, The Eight: A Season in the Tradition of Harvard Crew[3]
Course
The course is three miles (4,800 meters) long and stretches from the start at Boston University's DeWolfe Boathouse near the Charles River Basin to the finish just after the Eliot Bridge and before Northeastern University's Henderson Boathouse. The course is renowned for being challenging for crews to navigate without incident or penalty. The course contains six bridges, which appear in this order from the start:
The Weeks and Eliot Bridges fall at sharp turns in the course, and collisions occur here more than any other part of the course.
Racing regulations
Crews start the race at 15-second intervals. The starting order is based on the crew's finishing time in the previous year, with the top finisher from the prior year leaving first, the second finisher leaving second, and so on. Crews that did not compete in the prior year are seeded after all prior year entrants in a random order, although race organizers have some discretion in the seeding process. Having presumably faster crews start ahead of presumably slower crews reduces the amount of passing boats must make during the race, reducing the potential for boating accidents. However, passing almost always occurs, and penalties are imposed on crews that do not follow passing regulations, such as failing to yield to a boat that closes to within one boat length of open water.[4]
History
First year
The Head of the Charles Regatta was first organized in 1965 by Cambridge Boat Club members D'Arcy MacMahon, Howard McIntyre, and Jack Vincent. The members of the boat club thought that a fall regatta would be an entertaining way to break up the monotony of the training season for colleges and boat clubs in the area. D'Arcy MacMahon had been the captain of the University of Pennsylvania's lightweight varsity three seasons earlier. They initially had little hope the regatta would be a success, it was the wrong time of year and it wasn't expected to draw any spectators.[5]
Harvard University sculling instructor Ernest Arlett provided the idea for the head race. George Ernest Arlett came to the US because in England only "gentlemen" could race. Even when Arlett brought Northeastern University's rowing team to Henley Royal Regatta and the team members were invited, the team entered by the front door and Mr. Arlett still had to enter by the rear or servants door. Class snobbery or pedigree was still in force.
Despite their reservations, the founders of the regatta were determined to see it become a success. In an interview with New York Times, Jerry Olrich and MacMahon identified that this regatta was "destined to become a classic"[6]
The Regatta expanded to a two-day event in 1997.
In 1991, Frederick V. Schoch was appointed Executive Director of the Regatta, and he continues to oversee the event.[7]
Charity program
Since 1998, the Head of the Charles Regatta's Charity Program has generated over $1,000,000 for its official charities, which include Cambridge Community Foundation and Community Rowing, Inc. The Charity Program allows competitors to gain an automatic entry into the Regatta in exchange for raising $1250 per person, per entry. Under official rules, any single, double, four, or eight is eligible to enter.
Cancellations
The race has been cancelled only twice: in 1996 due to storm bringing heavy rain and wind,[8] and in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (An online version in the fall of 2020 replaced the in-person race.)[9]
Awards
First place medals are awarded to winning competitors in each event category of the race. The first place medals are struck bronze medallions that are 2.5 inches in diameter. They show a single sculler from above on the front, and are engraved with the year and event on the back. Only the first place medals are distributed at the Regatta on Saturday and Sunday evenings following the races. Medals for second and third place medallions are of the same design, but are 1.75 inches in diameter. The Regatta issues additional subordinate medals according to the number of entries in the race as well.
Special winner medals (2.5 inches in diameter) engraved (a) COLLEGE-CHAMPIONSHIP, (b) LIGHTWEIGHT, (c) CLUB, or (d) UNDER-17 shall be awarded respectively to (a) the fastest crew made up of undergraduates representing accredited/chartered Colleges or Universities in each event-division of the Championship 2x, Championship 4+ and Championship 8+, (b) the fastest Lightweight crew in the Championship 2x, (c) the fastest crew unaffiliated with an academic institution in each event-division of the Club 4+ and Club 8+, (d) the fastest U17 crew in the Youth Single, Youth Double, Youth Coxed Quad, Youth Four, and Youth Eight, and (e) the fastest JV entry in the Men’s and Women’s Championship Eight.
Special medals are also issued to the most competitive Grand-Veteran scullers in the Senior-Veteran Singles Event; the fastest Veteran crews in the Senior-Master 2x, 4+, and 8+ events; the fastest Grand-Master crews in the Senior-Master 2x, 4+, and 8+ events.
Because of the 2020 cancellation caused by the global pandemic, the 2021 regatta awarded a special medal to the fastest Class of 2020 crew in the Alumni Four and Alumni Eight (crew must be at least 75% 2020 graduates, coxswain excluded).
Winners of special medals will not be awarded subordinate medals should they qualify. No special medal will be awarded if the first place medal winner also qualifies for a special medal.[11]
Rowing, sometimes called crew in the United States, is the sport of racing boats using oars. It differs from paddling sports in that rowing oars are attached to the boat using oarlocks, while paddles are not connected to the boat. Rowing is divided into two disciplines: sculling and sweep rowing. In sculling, each rower holds two oars—one in each hand, while in sweep rowing each rower holds one oar with both hands. There are several boat classes in which athletes may compete, ranging from single sculls, occupied by one person, to shells with eight rowers and a coxswain, called eights. There are a wide variety of course types and formats of racing, but most elite and championship level racing is conducted on calm water courses 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) long with several lanes marked using buoys.
Henley Royal Regatta is a rowing event held annually on the River Thames by the town of Henley-on-Thames, England. It was established on 26 March 1839. It differs from the three other regattas rowed over approximately the same course, Henley Women's Regatta, Henley Masters Regatta, and Henley Town and Visitors' Regatta, each of which is an entirely separate event.
Dame Katherine Jane Grainger is a British former rower and current Chair of UK Sport. She is a 2012 Summer Olympics gold medallist, four-time Olympic silver medallist and six-time World Champion. She served as Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University between 2015 and 2020, and is currently Chancellor of the University of Glasgow.
The Head of the River Race (HORR) is an against-the-clock ('processional') rowing race held annually on the River Thames in London, England between eights, other such races being the Schools' Head of the River Race, Women's Head of the River Race and Veterans' Head of the River Race. Its competitors are, with a few experienced junior exceptions, seniors of UK or overseas competitors and it runs with the ebb tide down the 4.25 mile (6.8 km) Championship Course from Mortlake to Putney which hosts the Oxford and Cambridge head-to-head races usually between one and two weeks later.
A head race is a time-trial competition in the sport of rowing. Head races are typically held in the fall, winter and spring seasons. These events draw many athletes as well as observers. In this form of racing, rowers race against the clock where the crew or rower completing the course in the shortest time in their age, ability and boat-class category is deemed the winner.
Rowing is the oldest intercollegiate sport in the United States. The first intercollegiate race was a contest between Yale and Harvard in 1852. In the 2018–19 school year, there were 2,340 male and 7,294 female collegiate rowers in Divisions I, II and III, according to the NCAA. The sport has grown since the first NCAA statistics were compiled for the 1981–82 school year, which reflected 2,053 male and 1,187 female collegiate rowers in the three divisions. Some concern has been raised that some recent female numbers are inflated by non-competing novices.
University rowing in the United Kingdom began when it was introduced to Oxford in the late 18th century. The first known race at a university took place at Oxford in 1815 between Brasenose and Jesus and the first inter-university boat race, between Oxford and Cambridge, was rowed on 10 June 1829.
Vesta Rowing Club is a rowing club based on the Tideway of the River Thames in Putney, London, England. It was founded in 1870.
The Thames Rowing Club (TRC) is a rowing club based on the tidal Thames as it flows through the western suburbs of London. The TRC clubhouse stands on Putney Embankment. The club was founded in 1860.
The Detroit Boat Club was established in 1839, as a sport rowing club. It was first created on the Detroit River during a time in which Detroit was just starting to grow. The Detroit Boat Club is a member of the Detroit Regional Yacht-racing Association (DRYA).
Durham University Boat Club (DUBC) is the rowing club of Durham University. In recent years, DUBC has cemented itself as one of the strongest university boat clubs in Great Britain. Under the leadership of former British Olympian Wade Hall-Craggs, DUBC notably won the BUCS Victor Ludorum for ten consecutive years (2004-2013), and has produced a number of athletes that have competed internationally at European and World Championship level.
The Victorian Head of the Schoolgirls regatta is contested between girls at schools from all across the state of Victoria Australia. Schools from the Girls Sport Victoria (GSV) and also Associated Public Schools of Victoria (APS), as well as smaller school rowing groups which enter under a rowing club banner, compete in a range of events over 1000m for the Year 9 and Year 10 events or 1500m for the Open events.
Caryn Davies is an American rower. She is the winner of the 2023 Thomas Keller Medal, the most prestigious international award in the sport of rowing, and the only American to have ever won this award. She won gold medals as the stroke seat of the U.S. women's eight at the 2012 Summer Olympics and the 2008 Summer Olympics. In April 2015 Davies stroked Oxford University to victory in the first ever women's Oxford/Cambridge boat race held on the same stretch of the river Thames in London where the men's Oxford/Cambridge race has been held since 1829. She was the most highly decorated Olympian to take part in either [men's or women's] race. In 2012 Davies was ranked number 4 in the world by the International Rowing Federation. At the 2004 Olympic Games she won a silver medal in the women's eight. Davies has won more Olympic medals than any other U.S. oarswoman. The 2008 U.S. women's eight, of which she was a part, was named FISA crew of the year. Davies is from Ithaca, New York, where she graduated from Ithaca High School, and rowed with the Cascadilla Boat Club. Davies was on the Radcliffe College (Harvard) Crew Team and was a member on Radcliffe's 2003 NCAA champion Varsity 8, and overall team champion. In 2013, she was a visiting student at Pembroke College, Oxford, where she stroked the college men's eight to a victory in both Torpids and the Oxford University Summer Eights races. In 2013–14 Davies took up Polynesian outrigger canoeing in Hawaii, winning the State novice championship and placing 4th in the long-distance race na-wahine-o-ke-kai with her team from the Outrigger Canoe Club. In 2013, she was inducted into the New York Athletic Club Hall of Fame and in 2022 into the Harvard University Athletics Hall of Fame.
G. Ernest Arlett (Ernie) is a member of the Northeastern University athletics Hall of Fame. Arlett was the first head coach for Northeastern University. Arlett was inducted in 1976 for his accomplishments in crew. Arlett also was the United States Olympic coach for Sculling during the 1976 Summer Olympic Games. Arlett also is credited with the creation of the Head of the Charles Regatta, which was organized in 1965.
William Patrick Maher is an American rower who competed in the 1968 Summer Olympics, winning a bronze medal in the men's double sculls. In 1969, he crewed for the United States Army out of Vesper Boat Club.
Cantabrigian Rowing Club, known as Cantabs, is a 'town' rowing and sculling club in Cambridge, UK.
Reading University Boat Club is the rowing club for the University of Reading in the United Kingdom. It is based at a boat house in Christchurch Meadows on the River Thames in the Reading suburb of Caversham. The club has a focus on sculling. It has consistently been one of the more successful university rowing clubs in Britain, including topping the medal table at the BUCS regatta in 2011 and at the BUCS small boats head in 2014 and 2015, as well as wins at Henley Royal Regatta in 1986, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2013, and is considered one of the top six university rowing clubs in the UK. A number of former members have competed at the Olympics, including double gold-medallists James Cracknell and Helen Glover. The club has organised the Reading University Head of the River race since 1935.
Campbell Watts is an Australian rower. He is an Australian national champion who participated at the 2018 World Rowing Championships, where he won a silver medal.
Rowena Alice H. Meredith is an Australian representative rower. She is an Olympic medallist, a multiple Australian national champion at both U23 and senior levels, was twice a medallist at underage world championships and has won four medals at World Rowing Cups. She competed in the Australian women's quad scull at Tokyo 2021 winning a bronze medal.
Abingdon Rowing Club is a rowing club on the River Thames based on Wilsham Road in Abingdon-on-Thames, Oxfordshire.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
