The Head of the Charles Regatta will welcome nearly 11,000 rowers and 150,000 spectators back to the Charles River this weekend.
The race — the largest rowing event of its kind in the world — was changed to a global virtual event in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That move marked one of the only two times in history the in-person race was canceled.
Executive director of the HOCR Fred Schoch said the Regatta is a significant part of Bostonian culture, with as much importance as the Boston Marathon and the city’s most famous sports teams.
“The rowers call it ‘Christmas for rowers’,” Schoch said. “It’s sort of a mix between Mardi Gras and the Super Bowl.”
The Head of the Charles is a three-mile head racing tournament — boats leave the starting line in intervals, and the goal is to pass as many other boats as possible.
There will be more than 60 rowing events taking place featuring more than 800 universities, colleges, clubs and high schools competing, according to Schoch.
Boat configuration varies with the different events. There are singles, doubles, fours and eights, where each number corresponds to how many people are rowing in addition to the coxswain, who steers the boat and coordinates the rhythm among the rowers.
There will also be several additional hours of events on Friday beginning at 8 a.m., a departure from previous years’ events spanning only Saturday and Sunday.
Lizzy Houston, one of the assistant women’s rowing coaches at Boston College, spoke about the weight of the Regatta for Olympic hopefuls.
“If you have a strong showing at the Charles, it can be a promising spring,” she said.
Houston said she is looking forward to seeing her athletes race, but that there was an even more exciting element for her this year.
“We’ve got a women’s club four and I’m also in a club four,” she said, “So, I’m racing against some of the athletes that I coach.”
Ian Accomando, the assistant coach for the men’s lightweight rowing team at Harvard University, described how training on the Charles River is an asset that rowers in Boston have.
“I think [the Charles River] is a pretty special place to train,” Accomando said. “It’s one of the most special places in the world to be a rower.”
He also commented on how competitive qualifying for the Head of the Charles Regatta is.
“You’ve got to be at the top of your game to get into a boat that’s going to race in the event,” he said. “[The race] kind of celebrates sport, it celebrates our sport, it exemplifies the best of the best in the sport of rowing.”
Karen Powers, a family counselor from New Jersey, will be rowing with the University of Massachusetts Alumni rowing group in the women’s senior master eights 50+ event.
“I’ve always enjoyed team sports, everybody exercising and pushing themselves, and practicing and getting better, and so I guess rowing now is reminiscent of that time of my life,” Powers said. “It makes me feel youthful, and it brings back the memories of that positive experience.”
The alumni categories are also a great way for people who used to row for their schools to reunite after several years of separation, Schoch said.
“Maybe you graduated 15 or 20 years ago and you were on the rowing team, you want to come back, and that’s where the reunion part comes in,” he said. “People train remotely, and then they borrow a boat from their old colleges and they race.”
Houston said the Regatta could also act as a reunion post-pandemic and that it is about “bringing people together.”
“I’ve seen friends that I haven’t seen in gosh knows how long, and not just from a pandemic standpoint,” Houston said. “Rowing is a big community sport and it’s all about the camaraderie, so I think that that plays into it hugely.”
Powers has yet to meet every member of her team in person as she said it is composed of alumni from multiple years.
“We’re practicing the day before, but that will be the first time that we are rowing together,” she said. “It’s a little unnerving.”
Powers’ love for rowing overrides her apprehension though, she said, looking forward to participating in the Head of the Charles Regatta this year.
“I’m most looking forward to the camaraderie that rowing brings,” she said. “You’re all in the same circumstance completing this laborious task together. You start together, you move together, you finish together, you win or lose together.”
