Oarsmen

The U. S. season's greatest rowing week was last Week.

At New London, Conn., on the yacht-crowded Thames, Harvard and Yale had their annual race for two. As it had seemed she would, Yale won. Rowing a slow 30 strokes per minute, crossing the finish line six lengths ahead of Harvard, the men with blue tips on their oars did not pause to shake hands and take the Harvard men's shirts away from them, as is the custom, but kept rowing right on upstream and across to their boathouse and training quarters at Gales Ferry. When the Harvard oarsmen finally crossed the line they collapsed freely.

At Poughkeepsie, N. Y., nine varsity crews set themselves on the broad, current-ribbed Hudson for the biggest crew pageant of the year, the Intercollegiate. Before the start it seemed as if the winner would be either California, coached by bespectacled Carroll "Ky" Ebright, stroked by huge Pete Donlan and considered this year's greatest Western crew, or unbeaten Columbia, coached by Richard Glendon Jr., captained by Horace Davenport, considered this year's greatest Eastern crew. Cornell and the Navy were considered worth watching. Few thought there was much chance of a Wisconsin victory because, on account of late ice, Wisconsin did not start rowing this year in good season. Washington, which had beaten Wisconsin, seemed a powerful heavy crew but Washington had been defeated on the Pacific coast by California. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which entered the regatta for the first time this year, Pennsylvania, coached by Russell ("Rusty") Callow, onetime (1923-27) coach of Washington, and Syracuse, which has not won a Poughkeepsie race since 1916, seemed sure to be the trailers.

But two of those trailers, M. I. T. and Syracuse, and two of the supposed chief contenders, California and Cornell, were not even given a chance to trail. Instead, their shells sank and the 32 oarsmen were forced to dive into the rough-watered Hudson, to be picked up by Poughkeepsie police launches. And, as darkness annoyed the radio broadcasters, Junior Glendon's unbeaten Columbia crew shot first across the finish line, with Washington second.

At Marlow. Columbia's 150-lb. crew, in England for the famed Henley race, last week won a practice race from the Twickenham Rowing Club over the Henley distance (| 7/8 mi.), at Marlow on the Thames.