Music: Crews

On the Hudson. The way experts figured it out, either Columbia or California had to win. But when, at Poughkeepsie, a gun went off and seven crews splashed in a racing start, it was Cornell that jumped out in front. Down the river, wide and grey, covered with launches, canoes, yachts, ferryboats, the boats moved from Krums Elbow toward the bridge that rose, a web of iron, in the mist. At the mile and a half, Cornell had more than a length on the others. At two and a half miles, Cornell was rowed out and Columbia was leading California by a few feet. In the last third of a mile, crew races are decided and in that stretch California and Columbia fenced with each other. They went under the bridge and out of sight. When they came out, California was leading by a quarter of a length. Slowly the space became almost a length and suddenly the sirens of the observation boats blew for the finish. California’s time lowered by 17 seconds a record that had stood for 27 years.*

On the Thames. Harvard had the heaviest crew in 15 years. It was so heavy that the shell sat low in the water, so heavy, Bostonian, assured it was that young men with crimson feathers in their hats went through the observation trains at New London looking for bets and getting them. At 7 o’clock on a cloudy evening below Gales Ferry the two boats went away. Harvard was in front for the first 50 yards and never after that. Past the flags that marked the first mile, past the cluster of brick buildings at the submarine base, Yale moved steadily, powerfully, on a river turned into a theatre. Movie men cranking on the stone piers of the bridge photographed the coxswain throwing up his hands to show his crew that they had crossed the line. Ten lengths behind, the heavy Harvard crew, too tired to sprint, lumbered up to the bridge, collapsed. Said Yale Coach Leader: “I think the lines of Harvard’s varsity boat had a great deal to do with the crew trailing so far astern. I noticed the varsity boat in practice seemed to drag and believe the craft was a handicap of four or five boat lengths in tonight’s race.”

* In 1901, Cornell, under the old master “Pop” Courtney, set the mark of 18:53 1/5 sec.