Thanks to Kris Grudt for times, Charlie Hamlin for race descriptions.
Conditions: Horrific. Strong, puffy, quartering headwind coupled with a strong, adverse current.
The 2 mile Freshman contest was raced on Saturday afternoon in very tough conditions as the strong northwesterly made it nearly impossible to keep the shells on the stake boats and pointed. After nearly 15 minutes of fighting the wind and current, the race began with Yale taking nearly a length lead. Harvard clawed back and with a half mile to go led by 3 to 4 seats. Yale then put on a push that brought them even with 20 strokes to go. The boats raced bow ball to bow ball with Yale having the better sprint to win by 2 feet. As an indication of the challenges presented by the conditions, the winning time of 11:04 was nearly 3 minutes slower than the record time for the upstream, 2 mile course.
With conditions worsening, the JV and Varsity races were postoned until Sunday morning. The 3 mile JV race went off at 7:15 into the same northwesterly and adverse current albeit both lighter than the afternoon conditions of the day before. Yale again took the lead off the start and lead by nearly a length by the first half mile marker. Harvard then pushed and by the mile gone had pulled even and taken the lead. In the second mile, Harvard, in worsening conditions, rowed out to a length and a half of open water which they then retained for the balance of the race to win by 7 seconds. Again, in a very slow time of 16:22.
The varsity race was held in nearly unrowable conditions as the northwesterly built back to the same velocity that had caused the postponement the day before. Nonetheless, the race went off with in what would have been whitecap conditions had it not been for the current flowing in the same direction as the wind; i.e., on the bow. Again, Yale powered off the start rowing over 40 into the headwind, current and heavy water and opened a lead of 6 to 8 seats. As black, 20 knot puffs bore down on the crews, Harvard, understroking Yale in the early stages of the race, pulled even by the mile marker. In the second mile Harvard took the lead and by the two mile marker had a length. In the third mile, Harvard extended its lead to as much as two lengths of open. Yale pushed back in the race's final mile but Harvard controled the race to win by 8 seconds in a time of 23:22, the slowest time since 18:94, and the second slowest winning, upstream time since the race began in 1852.
The race was last postponed overnight in 1963, incidentally Harry Parker's first year as Harvard coach.