City, News

Annual regatta draws thousands to Charles River

More than 9,000 rowing athletes participated in 55 races in the Head of the Charles Regatta on the Charles River Saturday. PHOTO BY MICHAEL CUMMO/DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF

For Shana McGough, a 12-year Riverside Boat Club rower, the Head of the Charles Regatta might have been the reason she was convinced to move to Boston.

“One year I flew out here just to see it, and it was amazing and awesome and I’d never seen so many rowers in one place at one time,” she said. “I fell in love, and I moved out here seven months later.”

Thousands of spectators flocked to the 48th annual Head of the Charles Regatta that began Saturday afternoon, featuring 9,000 rowers and 1,400 volunteers who participated in 55 total matches, according to the Regatta’s website.

The regatta is the world’s largest two-day rowing competition, according to the HOCR website.

Boston University men’s crew placed fourth in the club eights and fifth in the club fours, while BU women’s crew placed second in the club fours.

The University of Washington landed in first place in the men’s Championship Eights, with USRowing taking first place for in the women’s category.

Donna Goldman said she attended the regatta to watch her son, Julian Goldman, a two-time youth national champion whose team also won in a race in the 2011 regatta.

“It’s a blast to be here,” she said. “It’s certainly an unbelievable sense of pride to see your kid being [in], so far, the winningest crew ever, so we’re here to hopefully celebrate another win.”

Olympic gold medal rower Taylor Ritzel, who was working at the U.S. Olympic tent, said the regatta is a special race.

“The Head of the Charles is an event that is highly competitive but also just really fun,” she said. “The Charles is a rower’s Christmas — it’s just the best time of the year and you see a lot of people and celebrate the incredible sport of rowing, and Boston does a great job.”

Chris Richards, a member of the board of directors for Head of the Charles, said the presence of many elite level Olympian athletes makes the regatta truly special.

“Not unlike the Boston Marathon — every serious runner wants to run in the Boston marathon — every serious rower wants to row in the Head of the Charles,” he said.

Richards said it has taken work to develop the regatta to its current elite status.

“Over time the star of the Head of the Charles has ascended to a point where we absolutely are the headrace, not just in the United States, but really worldwide,” he said. “Many people think of the head of the Charles being the defining fall regatta.”

Joseph Townsend, a winning rower and an BU Class of1967 alumus, said the Head of the Charles has grown to similar status with the Henley Royal Regatta in London.

Townsend described the regatta as “the father of all the head races.”

“It all started here in 1965 when I was rowing at BU, and now there are hundreds of head races,” he said. “So it’s busy like Henley, it’s gotten that kind of status [with] hundreds of thousands of people on the bank.”

Townsend and his team, Motley Rowing Club, placed ninth in the senior master eights for men aged an average of 50 and older.

The regatta attracted student rowers as spectators.

Rose Healy, an Amherst College sophomore, said it has been interesting for her to see the regatta as a rower.

“I’m from Boston, so I’ve been to the regatta many times when I was younger, but this is the first time I’ve been here since I’ve really started getting into rowing,” she said.

Healy said watching the regatta as a rower was also motivating.

“It’s been a really good experience in terms of encouraging me to want to work harder and pursue the sport even more,” she said.

Mackenzie Gennette, a freshman at University of Massachusetts Amherst, said as a walk-on rowing member of her school’s team, she enjoys watching the regatta.

“It’s crazy because it’s such a cool race, and it’s so international,” she said. “People are here from different counties. There’s hundreds and hundreds of teams here. I just met the U.S. Olympic team in the tent, and I held their gold medal. You don’t get to do that everywhere you go.”

Website | More Articles

This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.

Comments are closed.