“Nobody is ever going to be like [The Charles], but in terms of number of boats in the weekend, we’re bigger than that now,” said SRA regatta director Chris Chase. “Once we start launching, we’re not going to stop. Over 1,000 boats a day, it’s going to be rapid fire and a long day for the volunteers. We don’t have any time to spare.”
The Charles has upwards of 300,000 people in attendance annually, in addition to about 10,000 coaches and athletes from all over the world, while the Head of the Fish is expecting between 10-15,000 people total.
Up 400 entries from last year, the Head of the Fish is sure to be packed with rivalries from morning to dusk on both Saturday and Sunday.
As for Sunday’s junior competition, the SRA girls’ varsity eight that came in seventh last weekend will have another shot at one of the clubs that finished just seconds before them—Community Rowing Incorporated from Boston, who will be bringing 220 participants to Fish Creek.
“We’re really excited,” said SRA coach Eric Catalano. “(CRI) beat us by just a second or two. They’re going to be here this weekend. But they were racing us on their home water and they edged us out, so we’re hoping we can beat them on our home water.”
The Wayland-Weston crew team from Massachusetts, who has also developed a rivalry with SRA, will also be in town.
“A lot of times we’ll lose to CRI on their home water, or some of these other programs,” Chase said. “A little motivation always helps. When we have a boathouse and they don’t on the other side, you add up all those things and it’s happened quite a bit that we’ve beaten teams who we lost to the week before. On our home water, we know when we can sprint and the other teams are sort of guessing a little bit.”
Along with the girls’ eight who medaled with the seventh place finish last weekend, the girls’ four finished fourth, despite a minor collision in the last quarter of the race. After last years eight won SRA’s first ever gold medal, this year marked the first time the girls medaled in two separate events, while multiple boys boats also qualified for next year.
“We’ve had a pretty good streak for the girls’ team of staying in the top 10 percent of the crews,” Chase said.
Another aspect of the event to keep in mind is the landscape of the course. While teams had to pace themselves at the 3-mile Charles, the Head of the Fish features a 2-mile race with just one turn.
“You’re going to see people just letting it rip and pulling on it because the race is over quicker,” Chase said. “It’s one less mile and they can really unleash. There’s going to be some furious sprinting going on, so it’s going to be a long sprint is what it’s going to be.”
It’s fitting that this year’s Head of the Fish is set to be the largest, as it is also one of the largest teams SRA has ever fielded, with 180 junior athletes alone. The boys’ team has the most rowers it has ever had.
Coaches and coxswains will met at 6:30 a.m. each day before launching at 7:20 a.m. and racing at 8 a.m. Saturday will kick off with collegiate/adult racing, before the juniors take the water Sunday.
“We have great colleges coming in,” Chase said. “On top of that we have more colleges, so that’s starting to expand quite a bit,”
Big school’s from the Northeast, such as BostonCollege, SyracuseUniversity and the University of Connecticut are making the trip.
There will also be past and current national team members in attendance on Saturday, including Cohoes native Austin Meyer, 23, who was once with the Shaker Rowing Association and continued his rowing career at HarvardUniversity.
“We have so many good teams coming,” Chase said. “If you look at the results of Charles and then you see what teams were on the water and then you look at ours, a huge number of them are here. Two weekends in a row of tremendous competition.”
The races are scheduled to wrap up at 5 p.m. on both days, with about an hour or so of daylight left over if need be.
“I’m just appreciative of all the families and people who have volunteered to make this great,” Chase said. “You can’t pull of something of this size without that. The community coming together to make this happen…there’s hundreds of people here that make this happen.”
