M. Heavyweight Crews Tempers Brown

The No. 4 Harvard men’s heavyweight crew sliced through the water—both from the rain droplets above and the Charles River below—to handily defeat Ivy rival No. 8 Brown and capture the Stein Trophy on Saturday.

For the Crimson, the rain was more of a blessing than a nuisance.

Despite the tiny ripples on the water, the rains generally limited the strength of gusts to just a minor crosswind.

Using more power than finesse, each of Harvard’s four boats grabbed an early lead that they then stretched out over the length of the course.

The first varsity boat, in particular, dominated its counterpart.

Maintaining a pace of over 35 strokes per minute, the squad led by a full boat length just one quarter of the way through the 2000-meter race.

The Crimson rowers doubled the advantage by the midway mark then extended it to five boat lengths before crossing the line in 5:55.0, 16 seconds ahead of the Bears.

“You want to keep pushing the margins,” junior stroke Kip McDaniel said. “There’s always the fear that they’ll come back.”

Those fears proved unwarranted on all accounts this weekend, as no Brown boat came within five seconds of victory.

But for Harvard, the early season is not so much about the head-to-head competition as it is about shaking off the past winter’s rust and preparing for the sprints yet to come.

“Right now everyone’s a little rougher than we plan to be three weeks down the road when we get to the championship races,” captain Mike Skey said.

Getting back into the swing of things has been slightly more difficult for the Crimson, as a long winter kept the rowers indoors later than they expected.

“We haven’t had a lot of time on the water,” Skey said. “But this year compared to most, we’ve had a lot of time on the tanks. It’s not the same at all as rowing in the boat, but it’s giving us something.”

The recent configuration of individual boats, too, has taken some getting used to.

Crews have generally been together for just a week and a half, but already there has been marked improvement on the water, both in terms of time and cohesion.

“[The boats] have been coming together nicely,” Skey said. “You’ve still got kinks to iron out. But generally they’ve come together well.”

While technique may take slightly longer than usual to polish, the additional time indoors has also increased the fitness of this year’s squad.

“I think we’re fitter and more powerful because of the extra work indoors,” McDaniel said.

That extra fitness has already played a role in Harvard’s victories thus far.

Though the Crimson boats dominated throughout, much of the distance between Harvard and the Bears was tacked on as the races drew to a close.

“[Harvard coach Harry Parker]’s been working us hard all year,” Skey said. “We’ve got the fitness to go the full 2000 meters and then some. We’ve got another gear for the end of the race.”

The men’s heavyweights head to No. 6 Princeton’s home course to square off against the Tigers and MIT next weekend in the Compton Cup at Lake Carnegie, N.J., where the Crimson seeks its first victory since 1993.

“It’s going to be a great race,” Skey said. “We just can’t get caught up in how the past history has gone. The trick is not to give them that little mental advantage.”

—Staff writer Timothy J. McGinn can be reached at mcginn@fas.harvard.edu.