Sunday dawned in a similar fashion to Saturday – blistering sunshine, clear skies and flat water that invited even the most tentative into its cool embrace. The racing found its last and most decisive gear on the final day, bringing forward a host of international stars and collegiate collectives to compete for the loftiest of championship titles in the bigger boats.
In the youth ranks, RowAmerica Rye from New York stamped their authority on proceedings by winning the women’s eights by 26 seconds ahead of Saugatuck and Greenwich Crew. Saugatuck squeezed their ‘B’ crew into fourth – indicating the depth available to that program for the 24/25 season – whilst Ridley College, Canada, and Headington School of the UK were fifth and sixth, respectively.
Last season’s national silver medallists from Los Gatos were winners of the women’s youth quads, seeing off the perenially impressive Redwood Scullers. Headington were third to complete a weekend that Ryan Demaine and Chris Hermes will surely be pleased with.
On the men’s side, the UK reigned supreme as St Paul’s and Windsor Boys School retained the titles they took in 2023. Kickstarting their assault on a second successive quadruple, St Paul’s will have been thrilled to take the win in the eight by nine seconds after a challenging journey to Boston that included a flight cancellation and re-routing of their trip via Zurich. Behind them were Marin and King’s College Wimbledon, which demonstrates the strength of British programs compared to US mega-clubs. Expect programs like St Joe’s Prep and RowAmerica Rye to pick up a lot of speed as the seasons unwinds.
Mark Wilkinson’s charges also began their season in optimal fashion, winning the youth coxed quads by 13 seconds over RowAmerica Rye and Nereid Boat Club. With two athletes on-board from last year’s Henley Royal Regatta-winning crew, Windsor will take some stopping in 2025.
On the championship side, the eights were layered with sub-plots, a rare sighting of the Boat Race clubs together, the first foray into racing territory for the largest collegiate programs and a smattering of Olympians to keep things interesting. Performance of the day on the men’s side went to Cambridge University, who blitzed the field to win the championship title by 2.5 seconds over a much-fancied Harvard outfit. In third, somewhat surprisingly, were Dartmouth University (stroked by US Olympian Billy Bender) whilst a Dutch unit from Skoll that featured Olympic champion Lennart Van Lierop finished fourth. Most importantly for the Light Blues though, was that they put 12 seconds into Oxford, whose stern three was wholly Olympic class.
The good news continued for Cambridge on the women’s side as their provisional top crew beat Oxford by 30 seconds in their first encounter of the season. Neither were close to winning the category outright though, as Leander brought their very best to bear in a crew that featured eight out of nine Olympians. That boat won the division, three seconds clear of Yale, who in turn were able to finish 2.5 seconds ahead of the University of Washington. Yaz Farooq’s magic was on display again, as her ‘B’ boat finished fourth in what one must assume were matched eights. The great lightweight eight – stroked by Olympic champion Imogen Grant and toiling under the banner of Skibbereen Rowing Club – were fifth.
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