Go to the Head of the Charles

Tomorrow is not like any other Sunday. Tomorrow is the Head of the Charles, and for oarsmen, it is the day that makes the fall training worthwhile. Heavy traffic will stir the Charles' waters, as crews from as far as West Germany will race over the course that stretches from the top of the basin to the northern Cambridge shores.

The regatta is advertised as casual, fun and low-key, but this year may prove otherwise for several reasons. Three thousand competitors and 720 boats will pass under the bridges, but the climax of the regatta will be late in the afternoon, when the West German Olympic Men's Eight challenges our own National Team crew in a match that never took place in Moscow this summer. The United States Olympic Committee has supplied transportation and living expenses for the Olympians, and Charlie Altecruze '80, who was spending the year studying in Germany, flew in for the weekend.

The Radcliffe rowers approach this weekend bewildered and upset. Senior Anne Benton, the most powerful oarswoman on the team, went home to California for an indefinite leave of absence. Katie Kelley, stroke of this year's Head boat, said, "I think people are more worried about Anne than the team. We hope she'll be back next semester." Coach Carie Graves has chosen not to re-elect a captain until she knows if Anne plans to return next term.

But the Head of the Charles is hardly a sober event, not when boats spill up against one another and collide with bridges. Many crews never even make it past the first turn, on Magazine Beach, where last year a heap of fours collided with each other and a committee boat, landing them all on the littered shores. Anderson Bridge usually claims a few, especially when the coxswain do not anticipate the subtle curve at the bridge.

During all of these splashing, yelling casualties, the clock ticks on, and boats eager to get through entangle themselves worse, to the chagrin of spectators on the bridges above them. These are the moments when people ask, "Is this really championship racing, or just a glorified raft-race?"