In the rowing community, the Head of the Charles Regatta is the event of the year. Appropriately, Duke kicked off its fall racing with its first appearance at the illustrious regatta since 2010.
Held in Boston, winners leave the weekend with the title of “Head of the Charles.” The world’s largest two-day rowing event, the Regatta boasts more than 9,000 competitors, 55 racing events and roughly 300,000 spectators every year.
For Duke head coach Robyn Horner, the weekend was a tale of two races, the highlight being Saturday’s club eight race and the breakout performances by freshmen Tara Christensen, Jess Findlay, Emma Durham and Katherine Maitland, who all made their first appearances as Blue Devils.
“Saturday was probably our highlight…for us to have four [freshmen] that earned their seats to travel to this race was really big," Horner said. "They definitely were probably one of the strongest classes that we’ve ever had come in, so we’re really looking for them to continue to develop and add in to what we already have and they’re doing a great job of it.”
The Blue Devils sent two teams to compete, a club eight and a varsity four. The club eight team—composed of Rachel Wosfelt, Katie Dukovich, Lauren Miranda, Hannah Hewitt and coxswain Karla Beltran in addition to the four freshmen—competed Saturday afternoon, earning a fifth place finish with a time of 16:58.354 in the 4,800-meter race. Tara Dalton, Jessica Findlay, Caroline Williams, Elizabeth Horne and Samantha Bowman made up the varsity four boat. The V4 raced Sunday finishing 15th with a time of 19:34.363.
Sunday’s varsity four performance was frustrating for the Blue Devils, who went into the weekend hoping to execute to the best of their ability. A variety of considerations including undesirable wind conditions, the overwhelming hype of the regatta and youth factored in to the team’s performance.
"It was very windy today and I don’t think that we handled it very well," Horner said. "The kids thought they probably could’ve raced a little better and it was a little bit of a frustrating experience. So I think we had some [aspects] that were really good, that we were really excited about and some that we thought ‘Oh, we didn’t nail that.’”
Duke will look to make adjustments in stroke rate before competing in its other three races of the fall season. After racing this weekend at a rate of 30 strokes per minutes, the Blue Devils plan on increasing to a rate of 36 by their last competition in November.
“A lot of times in the fall, people tend to row a little bit lower stroke rating because they are longer races,” Horner said. “We’ve been very patient this fall because we have young kids and we wanted to make sure they were rowing the way we wanted them to row. But now that we have a race under our belt, we’re going to try and start boosting our stroke rate a little bit.”
The remainder of the fall season for Duke includes three more events, with two at home at Lake Michie. Duke will host the University of Central Florida Nov. 1. The following Saturday, Nov. 8, Tennessee will also travel to Lake Michie. The Blue Devils will close out the fall season at the Rivanna Romp Nov. 16, which will be hosted by Virginia.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.