Ten Exeter crews traveled to Hanover, NH yesterday to race Hanover High School on Dartmouth’s home racecourse. The girls 1st-4th eights kept up their streak with their third consecutive sweep, though the 5th and 6th (novice) eights couldn’t keep up with Hanover. The boys 1st-4th eights all jumped out to early leads and cruised to open water wins. Full results:

G1		G2		G3		G4
Exeter	04:24.3	Exeter	04:35.1	Exeter	04:51.2	Exeter	04:56.0
Hanover	04:33.9	Hanover	04:50.4	Hanover	05:25.0	Hanover	05:20.6
G5		G6
Hanover	04:33.0	Hanover	05:23.6
Exeter	04:35.5	Exeter	06:10.6
		Hanover	06:24.1
B1		B2		B3		B4
Exeter	04:06.3	Exeter	04:15.8	Exeter	04:21.0	Exeter	04:32.3
Hanover	04:19.6	Hanover	04:35.6	Hanover	04:35.6	Hanover	05:01.5

Boat alignments on the floating start were not exact due to the Connecticut River’s steady current–these times are therefore not comparable. Temperatures were in the 50s with a slight quartering headwind.

Girls co-captain Allison Courtin ’08 said “It was fantastic to see G1-4 win again. For the first boat, it was a good race to see where we were as a boat against modest competition. Coming out of the race we still have things to work on–our start especially was not as clean as we would have liked, so we’ll be focusing on that in practices.” Courtin commented “It’s a huge testament to the program that G1-4 have raced so well.” Looking ahead to this coming weekend, “We’re really excited about Andover because we know that they’ve improved too and we’re looking forward to seeing how that plays out.”

Boys co-captain Tim Moore ’08 said “It’s great to get another win, though it was more of a test to see how hard we can push ourselves. In the end we could have done better, we definitely had some rocky strokes and need to focus more within the boat.” Moore added “After talking to guys in some of the other boats, it sounded like they felt that it wasn’t their best race either, though it didn’t help that we had to sit for two or three hours in the cold before getting on the water.” Regarding the upcoming races versus Andover this weekend, “We’ve been working a lot on technique and bladework, and we’re excited to see how that plays out against Andover.”

Next weekend, crews will travel to the Merrimack River to race Andover on their home racecourse.

If you have any photos to share of yesterdays races against Hanover, please send me an e-mail.

Update: A few photos appended, courtesy of Jerry Brecher and Towny Manfull.

Race Photos