Besides the usual water, wind, and weariness, oarsmen in the compromise sculling trial heats this week had to fight excursion boats and bridges to find out who would get into today's finals.

In the first of four comp heats on Tuesday, a B-School student named Robinson jumped to an early lead and looked like a sure thing--good form, plenty of wind, oar, blades flashing--until he smacked bow-on into the Western Avenue bridge. (He tried again in the last trial and placed second.)

In the third of the four heats, a promising oarsman named Chenery jumped to an early lead and looked like a sure thing--good form, plenty of wind, oarblades flashing--until a gay Charles River excursion boat loomed directly in his path. As he scrambled out of the way, Bruce Preston and Dick Schaal chunked swiftly by to cross the finish line in a dead heat.

So they had a re-run yesterday for which Chenery, probably unnerved by the whole thing, never showed up. Preston, who an hour before the race thought himself too ill to row, beat Schaal home by more than a length to qualify for the compromise class of the six championships this afternoon. The first race is at 3 o'clock.

Renaud Savarit, a Law School student, was the first to gain the comp final by winning the opening heat. Bill Middendorf took the second trial so handily that he bears considerable watching today, and John Murphy was the man who nosed out Robinson in his second attempt.

During the novice singles eliminations Wednesday, an ex-PT boat skipper, Jim Queeny, piloted his craft to the most impressive victory of the day and made himself the favorite for the final with a 3:32 clocking in the first heat. John Brewer, who trailed Queeny, also qualified, since there were only two heats. The winner of the other trial, John Bisbee, and his runner-up, L. W. Barroll, round out the novice singles finalists.

Four men each are entered in the junior singles and two are entered in the 155-pound singles.

The finalists:

Wherry--Burrowes, Clapp, Nilsson, Page. Compromise--Middendorf, Murphy, Preston, Savarit. 155-Pound Singles--Snow, Sprout. Novice Singles--Barroll, Bisbee, Brewer, Queeny. Junior Singles--Berg, Carpenter, Clement, Getchell. Senior Singles--Day, Dowd Eisenstein, Eldridge.

Clerk of course--Bill Dowd. Referee--Bert Haines. Time--3 o'clock. Course--Half mile downstream, from below Weeks Memorial Bridge to below the River Street Bridge.