Head of the Charles 2024 Coxswain Video – Women’s Veteran 70+ Eight

I joined this crew for one other head race and four practices before our trip down the Charles, which helped me tailor my "baseline" coxing style to best serve their needs. This was another year where I felt the division of labor: I was glad that I could entrust the rowers to execute their parts effectively, while I focused on my domain of navigation.

8 Patrice
7 Karen
6 Sheila
5 Pam
4 Barbara
3 Celeste
2 Bobbi
1 Linda

Bow 11, finished 3rd out of 3

STEERING: I'm proud of my steering at this year's race, especially in an 8. I used the practice day to test out my comfort level with getting close to buoys, and felt confident that between the responsiveness of the crew/shell, and the angle of the sun at the time of my race, I'd be able to put the buoys under my riggers. Our shell was a King brand and steered magnificently.

CALLS: I didn't feel that calls were my forte this race. My main criticism of myself would be that when race traffic got complicated, I reverted to basic calls that were fine reminders (like "stay controlled") but they didn't meaningfully tune into or address what the boat needed technically at the time. A pro is that I communicated to the rowers that I was managing traffic. As far as tone, the first half feels lower energy than I'd like when I listen back, but the rowers said afterwards that they liked that I was calm, rather than the type of coxswain who screams at them for the entire race. I don't usually like to narrate my steering decisions—my philosophy is that I should just be handling that in my own head—but this crew had resonated in our head race a week earlier with a situation when I verbally explained that I was only moving out an inch for another boat to pass us, so I brought some of that in here as well.

0:00 START
I noticed on the practice day that I started our build early, so I pushed it later on race day, but it was still a few strokes earlier than needed. Maybe I could have waited until I was at the yellow flag of the starting chute, rather than my bow. I wasn't very creative with our high 20.

1:42 MAGAZINE BEACH
I was shocked to look back and see multiple crews maneuvering to pass me on the outside. I was prepared to yield the buoy line if someone came up to claim it, but I was stoked to get to keep us over the buoys for this entire part of the race. Towards the end of the turn, I could have been more proactive in asking for port pressure, to keep the buoys closer to the hull rather than to our blades.

5:07 POWERHOUSE STRETCH
Because I got passed on the port side at the start of Powerhouse, I stuck to the right side of the River Street and Western Ave center arches. I was focused on maintaining that point, but in retrospect I can appreciate that this sort of placed us with port blades just in the clean space of the passing crew, rather than in the dirty water of their starboard catches.

9:17 WEEKS BRIDGE
I'm happy with my Weeks approach. I still had a couple of strokes of turning after the bridge, so I could theoretically have started earlier, but I don't think I could have gotten my port blades any closer to the abutment, and the orange buoy line was out much farther than in prior years. I've never come out of Weeks with a few strokes of turn to get my point on Anderson and had orange buoys under my riggers. Fortunately, I'd noticed that during my course walk and practice row, so I wasn't surprised by it.

11:37 ANDERSON BRIDGE
I'm proud of my estimate that I'd be asking for port power in about 15 strokes. I actually had to come off the rudder midway through this turn, because with port pressure plus rudder, I was getting too close to the abutment.

14:03 BIG TURN
I was annoyed to have a boat pass us here and yell for us to move more to starboard, when their blades weren't even over the orange buoys. I thought about yelling back "you have room," but technically the rules of passing state that you need to yield to the line chosen by the passer, even if it's not an optimized one. Once we fall in behind them, I'm proud of where I positioned the orange buoys next to our hull, and I'm glad I also caught the one that was substantially out of place, but proactively prepared starboards to bring us back to the line right after it.

18:24 ELIOT BRIDGE
I haven't approached Eliot like this in recent memory, but I knew we were about to get passed on the starboard side, so it didn't make sense to cut dramatically over to the Belmont Hill/Winsor dock. Instead, I set us up to carve a gradual line around the final turn.

20:16 FINAL TURN
This was an interesting stretch of the race, because there was a green buoy out way past the Belmont Hill/Winsor dock where the last of those are supposed to be. The coxswain who was passing me on the inside also saw it, and I think we communicated well without either of us having to substantially deviate from our lines. I like that I anticipated the end of the other coxswain's move and proactively got us back on the best line to finish the turn.