Conditions: breezy but protected on College Creek, 80 degrees, floating start, raced downstream against the tide (except men's V 8+ at high tide and both novice 4+s with the tide going out). circumstances: when we went to show the Delaware coxswains the proper race course on the James River, conditions were border-line bumpy to unrowable in the SW cross-wind. With the wind forcast to increase through the morning, we decided to play it safe and move onto College Creek. The course on the Creek was not ideal and included a sharp 80-degree port bend at 500 down and a smaller more gradual starboard bend with 500-400 to go. National Park Rangers also chased Delaware's trailer off the beach, so they had to return to our dock at the last minute and boat from there, complicating matters since some rowers who were doubling in different events or whose crews were hot-seating boats got separated by several miles. Other than the novice 4+s, which got pushed to the end several hours behind schedule, racing was not too delayed (only 40 mins behind). Men V 8+: Delaware (V 4+ and coaches) 4:56.93 William & Mary (V) 5:02:17 William & Mary (2V) 5:02.93 Comments: Delaware majorly interfered with W&M's V around the second bend. Because of the twisted nature of the course on College Creek and the fact that Delaware was our guest, results will stand nevertheless. Delaware took advantage of the inside of the first turn to push into the lead by a few seats. William and Mary's V started moving well just before the final bend and was moving back steadily when Delaware cut it off. The W&M 2V was the same line-up, but rowed like a completely different crew than the one which had rowed badly against the Frosh earlier in the day. W&M's 2V hung well back in third place despite having the inside of the first bend, but came on all barrels blazing in the second half of the race. Men V 4+: Delaware 6:34.52 William & Mary (V - bow) 6:45.61 William & Mary (V - stern) 6:49.04 Comments: Delaware led a tight race with W&M's bow four. W&M's bow four sprinted way too early and fell off the pace in the final few hundred meters. Men F 8+: William & Mary (1F) 5:39.05 William & Mary (2V) 5:45.27 Delaware (1F) 5:49.76 Comments: W&M 2V had a bad row, and the Frosh took advantage of that to storm away in complete control of their destiny. Men 2F 4+: William & Mary 5:45.90 Delaware 5:56.58 Comments: W&M led start to finish. Women V 8+: William & Mary 6:19.83 Delaware 6:25.47 Comments: Excellent race. War of attrition won by William and Mary. Women 2V 8+: Delaware (2V) 6:13.91 William & Mary (2V) 6:17.13 Delaware (1N) 6:23.54 Comments: Delaware's 1N joined into this race because William & Mary's 1N had to scratch at the starting line when one if its rowers got violently ill during the warm-up and had to be lifted out of the boat and taken to the hospital. Both 2Vs rowed low and long and were pretty much even for the first 500. Delaware swung wide around the first bend (in all fairness, a pretty tight bend for a racecourse, especially on the inside lane) and pushed wide into W&M's water - though no interference as W&M adjusted its course to allow for this. W&M moved back in the middle stretch. Delaware brought its rate up first, then withstood another W&M challenge before moving away again in the final few hundred. Race could have gone either way until last 300 meters. Women 2F 4+: Delware (2N - stern) 5:52.08 William & Mary 6:08.58 Delaware (2N - bow) 6:28.08 Comments: processional race. Easiest one of the day to umpire as crews stayed in their lanes and were anyway nowhere near each other.
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