– Yale bows out at HRR to eventual winners in Temple, Brittania, and Visitors’ Cups –
The Sprints Champion Yale varsity lightweights had to break into two fours for Henley 2001 (Temple Cup champions are not allowed to row in the event again), entering a coxed four in the Brittania Cup and a straight four in the Visitors’ Cup, while the Sprints Champion 2V was this year’s Yale representative in the Temple Cup. The gods of Henley were capricious this year, and both the fours and the eight found the eventual winners in their half of the Draw. The Brittania 4+ lost to Notts County on Thursday after beating Reading on Wednesday, and the Visitors’ 4- lost to Oxford Brookes and Taurus B.C. in the first round on Thursday. The Temple Cup 2V, after beating Durham University on Wednesday and Queen’s University Belfast on Thursday, drew ASR Nereus of Amsterdam on Friday. Fifteen strokes into the race, Nereus suffered a damaged seat, and was forced to stop racing. Since there is no breakage rule at Henley, Yale advanced to the semi-final on Saturday against Harvard ‘A’, the freshman heavyweights. Giving away 28 pounds a man to the heavyweight Harvard crew, the Yale 2V lights led the race through the Barrier, were close to level at Fawley, but then saw their incredible Henley run come to a close, with the winning time of 6:27, and a final verdict of one length and a quarter lengths. Though it is somewhat dubious given the vagaries of the Henley Draw to hail the fact that Yale made it to the semi-final round of four (further than any of the three EARC lightweight varsity crews entered), it should be pointed out that the Yale 2V lights did in fact beat the Dartmouth 1V lights (and the Trinity heavyweight varsity) in head-to-head racing at the Reading Town Regatta on June 30.