Racing in San Diego continued today with a full stack of Junior, Collegiate and Masters events, including all of the preliminaries for Sunday's big boat finals. The wind, always a feature in San Diego, was a steady presence, with a firm tailwind building throughout the morning to chop up the water, especially towards the finish.

Collegiate Men & Women

While the marquee events for the top end of Men's collegiate rowing are taking place on the opposite coast in Sarasota, the women's field in San Diego is deep. Top-ranked Texas won all four of their heats here today, in the I Eight, II Eight, Four and Open Eight.

"You never truly know what kind of team you have until they line up and race for real," said Texas coach Dave O'Neill. "I’m really impressed with all crews on this first day of racing, and I’m encouraged for what this team can be. We know tomorrow will be a tough test, but we’re committed to improving regardless of the result."

Teams would be advised not to sleep on the University of Washington women, however, who posted the fastest qualifying times in each of the Varsity level events, the I Eight, II Eight and the Four.

The Washington women posted the fastest times in all three NCAA events

The margins that the Texas and Washington 1V eights put on the field in their respective heats were a live feed operators' nightmare, as the leading crews were so far ahead of the pack that the video feed could either show them solo-rowing, or show the trailing field.

The margin from first to sixth in one race was 71 seconds, the mathematical equivalent of a seat per stroke.

The Cal Men sent only their Freshman eight to San Diego, but the youngsters made it count today; the crew qualified for the final in both the Men's Varsity and Men's Open events, racing to near-identical times in the two races held three hours apart. In the Open event, the Cal frosh saw off a crew stacked with national team athletes, including Winter Speed Order M2- winners Henry Hollingsworth and Jacob Hudgins.

"Man I love boat racing!" said Cal freshman stroke Osian James. "It was good racing today, nothing better than giving some swing with the boys. Tomorrow, we'll bring even more swing and finish like we did today."

Cal Berkeley Freshman

On video, the older crew had clearly shut it down later in the race; the rematch is tomorrow. In the Men's Varsity event, UC San Diego won the second heat and will look to challenge the Bears in the final.

Juniors

The Junior Eights took to Mission Bay in force today, with prelims across multiple events. In the Girls event, Newport AC, Marin, Saugatuck and San Diego RC took the wins in their heats, setting up what will be a smoking final. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, Saugatuck were the fastest qualifiers.

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On the Boys side, the heats were won by Marin and Newport, with Newport posting a slightly faster time.

The Juniors events also included "B" Eights, U17 and U16 eights events, and quads; as we mentioned yesterday, this is the largest-ever Crew Classic.

Masters

Far from being anonymous has-beens, the Masters events in San Diego are where the elite alumni in the sport come to hang out; multiple ex-Olympians were spotted donning lycra and getting their 2ks in.

Finishing second in their heat in the Men's Club Masters event was the North Dakota Indoor Rowing Team, or N-DIRT, coxed by none other than '21 CAN Olympic Gold medalist Kristen Kit.

"It's transformational to get out of the Great Plains of North Dakota and the Prairies of Saskatchewan into the Southern California sunshine," said Kit of the crew, which included multiple big names. "We all have connections to Bismarck, ND which is why we came together to gladly see water that wasn’t frozen. We spent this winter ice fishing, fracking, skate sailing and erging. This is our second day on the water and that made a 12 second difference. Wow, so pumped!! We are absolutely LOVING being a part of such an iconic regatta on the Mission Bay."

On to Sunday!

North Dakota Indoor Rowing Team, on the water