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Canterbury Receives Gift of Two Racing Shells Canterbury’s crew program began in the fall of 2003 as a club sport, coached and supervised by GMS Rowing of New Milford. Crew will maintain its club status until next spring when it will become a varsity sport. This fall the team is scheduled to row in four regattas, including the Head of the Charles. This year, faculty member Tim O’Keeffe will coach the team. He has ten year’s experience as a crew coach, having founded and overseen the program at Christchurch School in Virginia. “I’m really excited to build Canterbury’s crew program,” said O’Keeffe. “I’m especially thrilled that we have purchased Resolute shells. They are, in my opinion, the best boats on the market. They’re top of the line.”
2004 NCAA/IRA Season highlights The ’04 racing season was one of the most successful in living memory for Resolute with the highlight being the EAWRC Eastern Sprints. Princeton, stormed to victory in the Varsity 8 event, beating Radcliffe by a second and Yale, the third place finisher (in a Resolute for the first time) by three and a half seconds. Princeton’s Varsity 8 has only been using Resolute for the last two years; in 2002 they placed 4th and in 2003 having bought their first Resolute they achieved a 2nd place finish at Sprints. This year they went one better. While Princeton’s win was fantastic news, what made the race so exceptional for Resolute was that every single boat in the Varsity 8 final bar none was a Resolute. There are two characteristics that Resolute is known for. The first is speed and there can be no better proof of the speed of our racing shells than having every single college in the Sprints final race in a Resolute. The second is durability. Boston University, this year’s fifth place finisher at the sprints rowed the final in a seven-year-old Resolute. Most of the shells that our rivals make, if used regularly are no longer competitive after three or four years. The Brown University women (who use exclusively Resolutes) continued their dominance of women’s rowing this season, winning the EAWRC Eastern Sprints team trophy and then less than three weeks later swept away all opposition in Sacramento, California at the NCAAs winning the Varsity and JV events and placing third in the four. This tremendous set of results gave them the team championship for the fourth time in six years. At this year’s NCAAs there were four Resolutes in the Division 1 Varsity 8 final and two on the podium. In the Men’s Eastern Sprints, perennial contenders, the Harvard Lightweights claimed silver in the Varsity 8 event, just falling short against a Navy crew that has been acknowledged as one of the best Lightweight 8s of recent times. The PAC-10s was also a huge success for Resolute with University of California Berkeley’s women claiming gold in the Varsity 8 event. The men picked up a very creditable silver after a titanic struggle with University of Washington that lasted the length of the course. In the IRAs, University of California Berkeley finished off their season with a bronze losing to a Harvard crew that went on to place 6th in the world and the University of Washington crew that just edged them out of gold at the PAC-10s.
Guin Batten sets new record for solo crossing of the English Channel Batten, who won an Olympic silver medal three years ago with Britain's women's quad, used a Resolute 1x "racing fine". This high-tech, knife-edge of a boat seemed to balance precariously on the rolling swells, but was more than equal to the task of cutting through the busy sea lanes. Guin chose it specifically for the attempt because of its exceptional durability. The Channel has been rowed solo just once before, when Ivor Lloyd took 3 hours and 35 minutes to cross the same route, from Folkestone to Cap Griz-Nez, in 1983. But he used a broader coastal rowing shell, much better adapted to the open sea. Batten comprehensively smashed Lloyd's marker by finishing in 3 hours 14 minutes, surfing her way onto the beach near Les Epaulards rocks. The old time was also broken by Batten's training partner, Bob Gullett, finishing eight minutes later in his own scull. "This takes it back to what rowing is all about", said Batten, who is chairman of the BOA Athletes' Commission. She retired from international rowing in April this year after eighteen months of recurrent illness, and while working as a sports consultant, decided to find new challenges to fill the gap. The record row was helped by a particularly quiet day in the Channel shipping lanes. Only one container ship caused enough wash to set the shells bobbing. "Every stroke is different out there", said Batten after returning to dry land. "If I didn't concentrate on the here and now I nearly went in."
Brown Women on Golden Pond at Henley Regatta So did Brown’s alumni four in an impressive display of rowing for the Brown contingent at this 16th Annual event. The club four was the only Brown crew to lose yesterday. After winning six races over a three day period, it gave the much more experienced Tideway Scullers crew its toughest race of the regatta, losing to the British crew by 11/2 lengths in the finals. Otherwise the news yesterday couldn’t have been better for Brown, for its alumni and for the parents of the oarswomen, for whom the week of varied activities was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The Brown Women’s varsity, competing in open eights, defeated the University of London by more than four lengths in it’s morning race, then trounced the University of Texas on the glassy-smooth Henley course by 16 seconds in the finals. It must be added that the Texas crew was probably tired after a tremendous effort to beat Dartmouth in the morning. With its victory, the Brown varsity team earned an automatic berth in the Remenem Cup race for women at the Royal Henley Regatta, starting here July, 1. Brown’s second-varsity eight, with three members of this year’s championship freshman eight rowing, won its sixth race over a three-day period, beating the City of Oxford crew by 32 1/2 lengths in its finals. The alumni four, which won its only race yesterday, was composed of Maria Raymond at stroke, Jessica Lanning in the No. 3 seat, Jill Filipek at two, Rosel Branson-Gill in bow, and Misha Joukowsky, coxswain. Bronwyn Uber and Sarah Bowman, competing in the single sculls event, were eliminated in the first day. Except for the varsity, all the Brown oarswomen completed their season of rowing yesterday. The entire Brown squad of 26 athletes will make a four-day trip to Oxford where the varsity will train with the Oxford women’s crew in preparation for the Royal Henley Regatta. Remenem Cup races will be run July4-6. Brown assistant coach Phoebe Murphy said yersteday the national teams from Australia, Great Britain, Germany, Canada and Ireland will race in the Remenem Cup event. So will Radcliffe, which won both the women’s eastern sprints and the NCAA Championship this spring. Six more entries will be accepted through qualifying heats, Murphy said. It’s possible the Brown women could draw Radcliffe for their first race on July 4. “if that happens, so be it” Murphy said. As was the case at the Women’s Henley Regatta, every race will be a one-on-one affair, with the loser being eliminated...
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