In 1885, as we have seen, there was a revolution in rowing at Harvard. It was not until the early part of winter that Mr. Storrow, in the face of a certain amount of passive opposition, took the rather daring step, by engaging Mr. Faulkner as coach, of throwing overboard all those principles which, it is supposed, had won Harvard many a splendid victory. An entirely new system of rowing was inaugurated, and there was much grumbling and dubious head-shaking at the issue. Yale, on the contrary, was highly elated at Harvard’s adoption of the “professional” stroke. Her crew, be it said, was deemed so strong as to earn the appellation of the “Yale giants,” while Harvard’s was not only unusually light, but, with two exceptions, was composed of men who had never before sat in a ’Varsity boat. Save with the brave but meagre minority who believed in the new régime, up to a week before the race Yale’s success was a foregone conclusion. Well, the race, as one disappointed wearer of the blue expressed it, was a “procession.” Yale, vulgarly speaking, carried the bucket. Harvard jumped into the lead the moment her oars struck the water, and though averaging about thirty-four strokes to the minute after the first spurt, to her opponent’s thirty-seven, increased her lead at every stroke. On the last mile there were twenty-five boat lengths between the two crews. Harvard’s rowing was remarked upon, though little understood, by all who saw the race. So little effort was apparent in her style, that the uninitiated were at a loss to account for the speed of her boat. While it was manifest that the “Yale giants” were not as well trained as the Harvard men, it was palpable to the merest tyro that the immense distance between the two crews was due to causes other than the physical condition of the rowers. Although, be it remembered, Yale had improved somewhat upon the English stroke, yet the laborious wastefulness of her style was in sharp contrast to the ease and dash of the Harvard stroke.
The moment Harvard’s blades gripped the water every man in the boat, with a spring from the stretcher and simultaneous heave of the shoulders, threw his whole weight into the oar, and kept it there until the stroke was finished. The blades were covered throughout the stroke, and remained in the air as short a time as was consistent with the avoidance of “rushing” the slides. There was hardly the slightest perceptible “hang” of shoulders or hands at either end of the stroke. Although the body work was not all that could be desired, the “watermanship” or action of the blades was as smooth as the stroke of a piston-rod.
On the other hand, after making all due allowance for the air of general wretchedness which always surrounds a defeated crew, and for the halo of perfection about the victors, Yale’s rowing was really bad. Before the last mile was reached the desperate tugging of her men, the not infrequent splashing of her oars, and other symptoms of fatigue, showed plainly that the pace was too hot for her labored style of rowing. But her reputation for pluck and doggedness was never better sustained. In spite of the conscious hopelessness of the struggle, her efforts throughout the race were titanic.
After the race the usual exculpatory rumors developed the intelligence that the stroke of the Yale crew had been lifted from a sick-bed, and supported, tottering and nerveless, to his seat in the boat. Either this was a laudable attempt to apotheosize Mr. Flanders, or else his powers of recuperation must have been miraculous, for no man ever pulled a pluckier and more apparently powerful oar.
The next year, 1886, Harvard went down to New London with her crew of ’85, with a single exception, presumably strengthened by an additional year’s experience. Yale, on the other hand, had a comparatively new set of men. The race was the closest for several years, but ended in the defeat of Harvard by about five lengths. This may seem incomprehensible at first sight, but Harvard labored under a combination of untoward circumstances, which alone were enough to account for a defeat of five lengths. She was compelled by an accident which happened to her shell prior to the Columbia race, to row in an old class tub, which possessed the additional defect of shorter slides and outriggers than her style of rowing called for. The shorter stroke, which this change necessitated, was visible to all who saw the race. Add to this the fact that, through Yale’s aversion to rough water, the race was postponed and rowed up the river in the evening; that Yale, who had the east side, where the swift current which with the incoming tide flows up the course for a mile and a half, was permitted to jump ahead at the start; that Harvard had the dead water on the west side; that in spite of her rough water and ill-rigged tub, after Yale had left her lively current, Harvard gained four or five lengths upon her, and we have sufficient reasons to account for a defeat of five lengths. Nor is this all. The hopes of the advocates of the English or Bob Cook stroke, so-called, must fall to the ground like wilted rose-leaves when it is considered that Yale rowed as nearly the same stroke as Harvard as close attention and the exercise of some intelligence during a limited time could make it. If the diligent reader of newspaper interviews doubts this truth he should have been at the Thames during the race weeks of ’85 and ’86.
In noticeable contrast to her “watermanship” of previous years, and in a laudable attempt to improve upon it, Yale exaggerated the rather flat feather of the Harvard oars. But she had almost mastered the idea, so conspicuously absent in the English stroke, of throwing the whole weight of the body, the moment the oar gripped the water, directly against the stretcher. Had the race been rowed in the rough water and wind of the morning, the exaggerated feather, the noticeably longer “hang” at both ends of the Yale stroke, and the weaker “finish”—which last fault must always fail, against a strong wind, to keep the boat jumping between the strokes—would have conspired to defeat her.
In 1887, Harvard, after winning an exciting victory from the fastest crew Columbia ever sent out, and lowering the intercollegiate record, was again defeated by Yale, this time by about seven lengths. Her twice happy rivals deserved all the approbation showered upon them by their overjoyed supporters, for their rowing was magnificent. They had almost the same crew as in the previous year, and had still further modified their style in conformity with the stroke rowed by Harvard in ’85. Indeed, to connoisseurs the only perceptible differences between these two strokes were the longer “hang” of the Yale oars before entering the water, the slightly stronger “catch,” the slower start of the shoulders on the “recover,” and the weaker finish. As the wind blew down the course, these defects did not tell against her. As for her time, it would have delighted the rhythmic sensibilities of a Wagnerian.
Harvard, on the contrary, through her inability throughout the year to secure the regular services of a coach, and on account of her comparatively raw crew, did not adhere as closely in practice as in theory to the standards of ’85. After the first two miles, the punishing work her rather young crew[6] had undergone three days previously in the Columbia race began to tell upon her. They began to “clip” still more off their already short stroke, and their rowing became slightly ragged.
These reasons will answer the question, “Why was Harvard defeated by seven lengths?” and, taken in connection with the fact that Yale rowed in a boat as similarly rigged as Harvard’s as a foot-rule and the faculty of imitation could make it, will deal a death-blow at any marked individuality which the Yale or Bob Cook system of rowing may now be said to possess. Waters, of Troy, is the boat builder to both colleges. The innuendo, I hope, is quite fathomable.
It is not my intention to cast any slur upon Yale. Indeed, her whole progressive course under the skillful guidance of Mr. Cook, who knows a good thing when he sees it, but is not the aquatic god some would make him, has been marked by rare good judgment. I am merely marshaling my evidence for a final onslaught upon the system of rowing in vogue before ’85.