United States Coast Guard Academy - Department of Athletics - Men's Crew

BOSTON, MASS.--(10/21/06)--The US Coast Guard Academy Men's and Women's Crews competed against the top DI, DII, DIII and club programs from all over the world at the 42nd Annual Head of the Charles Regatta in Boston, MA.

On Saturday, in a 25, gusting to 40, mph headwind the CGA Men's and Women's Second Varsity 8's competed in the Club Eight event against a variety of crews ranging from international club programs to DI programs who did not get accepted into the Championship events to other DIII second varsitys. In the Men's event, the Bears posted a great performance that had them finish in 17th place out of the field of 59 crews. The winner was the Cornell men's 2V only after the top rowing club from Turkey, Fenerbahce Spor Kulubu was penalized 30 seconds. The only DIII school that finished ahead of the Bears was Wesleyan while the they beat their rivals from Tufts, WPI, UNH, RIT, and Amherst.

In the women's Club Eight event the Bears battled into an increasingly gusting headwind but found themselves locked with Williams's second varsity eight for much of the 3-mile race. While both coxswains worked their crews hard to gain an advantage, they managed to tangle a couple of times on the course which, in the final arbitration, resulted in a 2-minute penalty to the Bears for impeding the Williams crew. Although this disappointing turn-of-events resulted in the Bears dropping from 36th to 52nd in their field, they were excited about their performance given that that their actual time had them finishing only behind DIII Trinity and Williams's second varsity 8's while ahead of Bates, UNH and Clark. The event was one by the University of Tennessee's Second Varsity eight.

On Sunday, the first varsities took to the water took to the water in weather conditions to compete in the Collegiate Eights event that features all of the top collegiate programs in the US and Canada regardless of division as long as there are no athletic scholarships offered. In the Men's race, like in the women's club event, the men were hit by theTufts University crew, who were eventually penalized, as they attempted to pass and required the Academy boat to stop rowing and then get geared up again to finish the last mile of the race. This break in the action for the Bears cost them enough time to drop them from their top 20 position at that point in the race to a finish position of 41st out 61 competitors.

In the women's event, the CGA Lady Bears built on their performance at the Housatonic and passed 4 crews along the 3 mile course while battling the entire way with Queen's University from Canada. The Bears finished in 11th place out of 58 entries, behind 5 Ivy League Second Varsity contenders (Yale, Brown, Harvard, Penn and Princeton), 3 Canadian Universities, one other DI program and Williams, the only DIII program to finish ahead of the Bears; an extremely impressive performance. The Bears were excited about their finish against defending 2005 defending champ Trinity (finished 18th) as well as 2005 NCAA competitors Trinity, Colby (15th), Tufts (16th), and Smith (31st). They, along with Williams (8th) and Bates (13th), were the only DIII schools to earn a 'Guaranteed Entry' into next year's regatta since they were within 5% (4.72) of the winning time set by Yale University. The CGA Women's team will look to build on this end-of-fall performance as they go into the winter training months to prepare for yet another campaign to represent the Academy at the NCAA's on May.