They lost the race, but they wound up with the Cambridge shell.

While 12,000 onlookers cheered the winning Cantabs and while Crimson devotees dunked their last beercans, the Harvard rowers quietly took possession of the shell that beat them. The whole idea came from J. Oliver Filley '06, captain of the 1906 Crimson eight, who bought the shell, complete with its oars and bell system. Not even Tom Bolles knew what the varsity would do with it, but he said after the race that the crimson at least would "experiment" with its newest trophy.

The transaction was unknown to the thousands who decorated both banks and it probably didn't matter much. Amused by the bands and humor magazines of two colleges and warmed by a sun that sent the temperature to the mid-60s, the crowd had little trouble waiting out the hour-long postponement.

'Poonsters Take Swim

On the Harvard side, two Lampoonmen, Charles C. Osborne '52 and John Hubbard '53, plus a visitor from Princeton, entertained the onlookers by taking the first river dip of the season.

It took M.D.C. Captain William J. Marley almost a full hour to clear traffic after the finish, and when it was all over, he estimated that the crowd was the largest to flock to the Charles in the last 1 years of racing.

The river itself seemed equally crowded. The party never faintly resembled Harvard-Yale day at New London, but over a score of boats chased the crews up the river, and several Crimson-chartered barges moored near the finish line.

Although it didn't help their causes one bit, the president of M.I.T. and B.U., James R. Killian and Harold Case, contributed to the dignity of the day by riding up the Charles together in the Tech launch.