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I am back from the Head of the Charles regatta in Boston, which was one of the greatest experiences of my life. It's the largest regatta of its kind in the world, and it was the one last big races in which I'd never participated. We met some Australian men rowers the night after our race just walking down the street toward a bar. Boy were they beautiful. They were from Melbourne, and they won their race by beating a team from Sydney. We also met a couple of older, gray-haired gentlemen from Cambridge -- England, "the real Cambridge," as they described it -- waiting for the T who had rowed the Charles several times. I regret being so busy I couldn't watch more races and meet more people.
As far as how we did, we finished 11th of 26 boats with a time of 19 minutes, 5 seconds. I "crabbed," which is a rowing term that means to lose control of your oar so that it goes over your head and behind you, parallel to the boat. It is a serious mistake, can cost your crew lots of lost time and can be dangerous if you are suddenly whacked in the face with the oar handle. I wasn't hurt and recovered quickly, and we were back to full speed again within 10-15 seconds. But nevertheless, the damage was done. We would have broken 19 minutes without my crab. (Apparently there is a series of pictures that a photography company caught of it, so I will show you what it looked like when they post the photos online. Other members of my crew saw them and said it looked really bad.) We also quite possibly would have gotten an automatic invite back next year without my crab -- you have to finish within 10 percent of the winner for the automatic invite, and our time was 10.8 percent of the winner's time. (In my defense, there were problems with the finish times of several boats in our race, including ours. Our final time had to be somewhat estimated.)
But I don't want to focus on the negative. That was the one regretful incident of the race and weekend. The row itself, other than the crab, felt incredible, and even with the crab, we beat the time of last year's ORC boat -- at the time, ORC's best crew -- by more than a minute, which I think is a 5K best for our team. Our cox, a 16-year-old Winter Park rower who steers the boat, nailed the tough course. It twists and turns -- sometimes at 90-degree angles that have to be cut really sharp or you swing wide and lose time -- and goes under at least five bridges, where only two boats can fit through at a time. The ladies congratulated me on a quick recovery from the crab, and all said it was one of their best races ever. No one left without a smile. I was so happy and relieved, I cried.
I took more than 70 photos throughout the weekend and will post a photo gallery. I'm sorry I didn't e-mail any via my phonecam; I couldn't find the charger and didn't want to burn the battery. In the meantime, here are a few sights.
Phonecam shot; waiting for the race to start
A. and C. on the T (boy was it cold)
What I was looking at when you called, B.
Current mood: Indescribable