The Head of the Charles doesn't often bend to the will of the fickle New England fall weather patterns, where a warm, calm day can suddenly become a wind driven maelstrom that whips portions of the Charles River course up into a challenging mess.
Rowers do what they always do in those cases, which is get down the river as fast as they can. But they spectators, they can be smarter than the athletes and get out of the rain and wind and cold when it happens.
But when the forecast all week calls for several consecutive days of almost summer like temperature and clear blue skies, it's big party time on the Charles. And that is exactly what happened on the first day of the 53rd Head of the Charles, from the start of the first event, the the size of the crowds turning out to watch and take in the sights built just moving on the venue took patience.
But not on the water where the first day of the two day rowing marathon focused first on masters sculling events and then to the popular alumni eights races and clubs events with a mix of masters sweep races, before turning to the heavy weight bouts on the schedule, the championship doubles and single.
From the men's senior veteran's single won by Great Britain's 70-year-old Tom Bishop (read an interview with Bishop right after he won here) right through the last of the day's races, the adaptive and inclusion events, conditions for both athletes and fans were, well, epic.
"There was a little bit of a headwind," said Gevvie Stone, who won a record eighth title in the Women's Championship Single, "But conditions generally throughout were pretty perfect. I can't complain." (Read an interview with Stone here.)
Stone's race was one of the most anticipated races of the day. After winning an Olympic silver medal in Rio last summer, Stone stepped aside from competitive, international racing to start her medical residency.
She's been too busy to train at the level she had been throughout most of the 2012 and 2016 Olympic cycles, but with Anne Marden's record of seven wins - a record tied by Stone last year - on the line and Marden on hand to watch, Stone went after the win from the start.
"It's difficult to race a time trial I think, in a way," Stone said. "I had opened it up on (Stesha Carle, started second and finished second), and she hasn't been training either. I think I thrive on competition. It's hard to race with kind of no one in sight and that's a mental battle and it definitely was a mental battle that I had with myself today, which was how much can I continue to push myself."
Stone said she did not know that Marden was in the crowd watching until she finished the race. "When I heard that after my race, I started crying. That's as supportive as anyone could be and it means a lot."
Another of the highly awaited races was the Men's Championship Double.
Penn AC started first and carried the 2016 title with them, but the Irish lightweight Olympic silver medalists pair of brother Gary and Paul O'Donovan were back after finishing eighth last year and were expected to contend after learning some of the nuances of the course last year.
But the Penn AC's Justin Keen and Erik Frid were expecting the push and were up for it.
"It was tough," said Keen. "I think they were out for blood this year, they didn't do so hot last year. They came out hot. It was stroke for stroke the whole way down, and if they weren't behind us there's no way we would have gone that fast.
"It was a great race. You just do the best you can when you have the guys like that push you down the course. We couldn't ask for a better piece. We knew they were going to be fast, and we got out fast, and we got a little bit of head way at the start there, and then just held them off stroke for stroke in the body of the race."
Read a full interview with Frid and Keen here.
Gary O'Donovan agreed that they wanted to race better down the course, but said it was all more about having fun.
"We enjoyed it," he said. "We came over to have fun, and so far we've done that. We made an improvement on last year. We had a good race, and made a better racing which is important. Hopefully, next year we can do a little better.
"I think on the last spin just after the big bend, we took the corner to really avoid them the last bit of time," he said. "That's disappointing, but what can you do? We had a better course than we did last year, and we move up from eight to second there, so that’s good."
Notes from the course
It was only a little over a year ago that Elle Logan was basking in the highlight of winning her third Olympic gold medal. It goes without saying that Logan loves the sport, and especially her time representing the US. She still loves the sport and said Friday that she will "probably row for the rest of my life."
Logan was again enjoying rowing, but was a picture of contentment sitting in a chair on the bank of the Charles watching the crews row by with her sleeping six-week-old baby boy in an infant carrier on her chest. "This is great," Logan said. "I get to just sit and watch."
The giant banners on the bridges didn't arrive until friday, so Mason Cox, Brendan Mulvey and team went out well after dark and put them up.
Website outage anyone? Ouch
The place was packed: more beer sold Saturday than over two days in past years
The Aston Martin on display made for a lot of selfies, some with cellphones purposely in the photo; self-driving cars can't arrive soon enough.
A guy randomly stuck his head into a boat meeting of folks he didn't know to blurt out "Who remembers the snow year?!?!" It was a bit nutty, but with Sunday forecast for 74 degrees with 3 mph winds, maybe 'kids these days' don't know from conditions. There will be other chances, of course...
The weather wasn't just good for rowing; the water playground below the finish line was cranking with little kids splashing around.
After 20 years of covering the HOCR, almost have the "intersection" coming off Eliot Bridge at CBC figured out.
Overheard along course: "We can't leave until we cheer for Ben... well, we can't leave until we heckle Ben."
85 men's and women's youth fours and eights on Sunday for a total of 340 crews for this year's crash photos.
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