Quick news of Friday's racing:

In the V8, Cal went hard early, as they have all year, and pushed out on Harvard; it took Harvard the better part of the race to reel them in, but just inside 500 to go Harvard had open water, eventually dropping down to 32-33 spm crossing the line. Behind them, the race only got tighter, as Cal faded and Princeton and Yale came howling up together. By the finish line, the three crews were within about three seats of each other, with Cal holding on for second, and Princeton holding off Yale by a seat or so to advance to the grand. Navy set the pace in the other semi, but Washington took the win, with Dartmouth punching their way into the grands behind Navy. Northeastern met a similar fate as did Yale, missing the grands by a few seats.

In the 2V, two undefeated crews, Harvard and Washington, met in the semis; the two ran together for over half the race, but Harvard let Washington take it; Harry Parker said later that the crew had decided "not to race the race today, to leave it for another day." The final should be superb. The same semi saw the Minnesota varsity, rowing in the 2V at the IRA, nab the third grand final spot ahead of Wisco.

In the other semi, Navy placed a second crew into the grands, taking the win, followed by Cal and Cornell. The Princeton 2V jumped a slide in the first 10 strokes, but kept rowing, and paid dearly at the finish line, missing the grands by about a foot.

In the frosh eight, after sitting out the heats with a muscle strain, Harvard stroke Brendan Hodge returned to the boat for the semis to the consternation of some of the competition, who felt that some advantage might be gained from having a fresh stroke, some crews having raced twice on Thursday. Harvard rowed a tentative race, letting Cal take the win, but still left a couple lengths of cushion behind them to third place Stanford, who go to the grand. Brown, Yale, and Princeton advanced in the other semi.

In the women's lightweight eight, Wisco threw down in the morning heats, sending Princeton to the reps and posting the best time of the day by seven seconds. Radcliffe won the other heat; see the draw for other advancements.