It's like a rich man's Mardigras on the Charles this week.

Over 75 Crimson oarsmen, undergraduate and alumni, are jamming the waters of the Charles from Watertown to the basin in preparation for the American Rowing Association Regatta here this weekend. They are riding in all sorts of odd-sized shells from singles to eights and fly the colors of nearly every boatclub along the riverbank.

Crimson rowers comprise the biggest part of an eight-oared shell and all of one four representing the Union Boat Club in the regatta. The colors of the Weld Boat Club, of Eliot House, and of the Newell squad will emblazon the oars of seven other eights. Three singles and a quad (four oarsmen plying eight oars) will also represent the Weld Boat Club. A double (two oarsmen and four oars, without a cox) have been working out of Weld in the past weeks but won't enter the regatta as plans now stand.

The annual ARA regatta is the rubric of the odd-sized sheel season and decides the national championship for little college and club eights. It rotates year after year from one rowing river to another and draws little colleges and clubs from the nation and second and third boats from the big rowing colleges in the vicinity. Its big function is as the final testing course for the nation's single scullers.

Ell Hasn't Entered

The races, starting at 1 p.m. and lasting until after 6 p.m., will also include races between various female aggregations gotten up for the occasion. Yale, however, will not enter its first team in the ARA's as it did last year, and doesn't plan even bringing any of her lower echelon oarsmen. Her unexpected entry of her first varsity and subsequent sweep of the small college eights at the ARA regatta in Philadelphia last year has apparently proved enough sustenance for her publicity department for some years to come.

The Crimson participants taken as a whole are a motley crew. Experience among the oarsmen ranges from none in the two week old Weld Boatclub crew, comprised primarily of bolters from the varsity football squad, to a great deal for the Crimson's third varsity eight, which will enter the Steward's Cup race. There are three different ight racs, first, second and third closs, and Coach Tom Bolles at Newell and Coach Blake Denison at Weld have entered their boats to correspond with the quality of the competition expected in each class.

Steward's Cup Heads Menu

The third Varsity heavies and the first 150's will carry the Crimson honors in the big race of the day, the Steward's Cup. They are pitted against the first Union Boatclub eight, manned by an intercollegiate alumni group including such Harvard notables as All-American, Phi Beta Kapa guard Chub Peabody, and against the LaSalle College Varsity heavies.

In he Freshman race the second freshman heavies and the first freshman 15's will race Tech's second freshman heavies and LaSalle's first freshman heavies. The Jayvee 150's will stand Tech's and Dartmouth's varsity 150's in the 150 pound race. The other eights, Eliot's first boat, the Weld Boat Club football crew and the Union Boat Club's second boat will fight it out for the Brown trophy against Brown, Dartmouth and others in a less highly touted race.

An explanation of the alignment of boats in these races is in order. 150 pound crews, containing no man over 155 pounds are slower and can keep their pace for less distance than the average heavy eight. This is because much of the smoothness and drive of a shell is provided by the easy swing of the upper body and shoulders of the oarsmen at the catch and that, because light weights must make up in strength what they lack in beef, they muscle out a more strenuous and less rhythmic stroke. The Crimson third heavies versus the first 150's is thus an unpredictable and much discussed meeting.

Three Single Scullers Entered

The most important races of the day are the single sculls. The Crimson's strongest entry in the singles is Dick Emmett, member of the varsity eight last year. He will row in the championship singles race. Peter Heller and Lou Allen, who have rowed singles for less than two years, will compete in the intercollegiate and the 150 pound races respectively.

Four spares for the third varsity heavy boat found a four oared shell at the Union Boat Club, three weeks ago. Under the aegis of Dave Stone, number three man and unofficial captain, they will enter in the name of the Union Boat Club. Bolles has given them a few sessions of polishing this week. Now their only difficulty is in finding some competition, for no other four has turned up in the regatta entry blanks.

Four Hopes to Race Quad

For lack of official competition, the four hopes to enter the race open to quads. The Crimson entry for this race. Joe Eldridge, Heller, Gordy Abbott, and Allen, will be the fours only substantial worry if this shift is allowed by ARA officials. So far the ARA VIP's have not vetoed the plan. This quad has had little practice together but all are well versed in the plying of double oars.

Who holds the advantage in a race between a quad and a four is a mute point. The variables: the efficiency of four oarsmen plying eight oars versus that of four oarsmen plying four; the speed and power derived from eight short oars versus that of four slightly longer oars; and the stability of a quad where the oarsmen are kept in balance by an equal and straight pull of both arms versus the tendency to roll that is always present in fours and eights.