A powerful varsity eight staved off a desperate rush by Syracuse last Saturday and held on to win the feature race of the Charles River Regatta by a margin of some seven feet.

The varsity's win climaxed a successful afternoon for the Crimson as Harvard crews captured six of the seven races. The lone defeat came when an unexpectedly strong Orange J.V. boat overtook the Crimson J.V. in the last quarter mile and went on to win by a half length.

In winning the final race against a very good Syracuse eight, the varsity eight not only vindicated Coach Harvey Love's choice of them as his first boat, but also showed that it will be a crew to contend with in the weeks to follow. Its time of 8:48.4 was seven seconds better than anything it has rowed in practice and it had the necessary stamina to hold off the Orange in the final yards of the race when Syracuse was rowing a frantic 40 to the varsity's 37.

The Crimson lightweights swept the river with little trouble as the varsity led the way with a record 6:29.6 clocking to win the Henley distance of 15/16 miles. All three crews, Varsity, JV's, and Freshmen, defeated M.I.T. and Dartmouth by wide margins. The Freshman heavies, in beating Syracuse and M.I.T., turned in an excellent time of 8:53.8, two and a half seconds better than the victorious Syracuse JV crew. The Crimson third lightweights won the combination race in the afternoon's first event.

In the varsity heavy race, the Crimson's plan was effectively simple: get ahead and stay ahead. It started well, going into the lead by a length over the rest of the field, and holding the margin until Syracuse started its bid with 3/4 of a mile to go. At this point the Orange put its boat up to 35 but varsity stroke Fritz Schwarz kept his boat at 32 and still managed to maintain a lead of about 2/3 of a length.

The Crimson actually won the race at this point, for by staying ahead of Syra- cuse while still being overstroked, the varsity had the stamina left at the end to hold off the Orange's power finish. Syracuse was clocked at 8:49, a scant .6 behind the varsity. M.I.T. trailed by three lengths with B.U. another two lengths behind.

The J.V. race followed the same pattern as the varsity race, except that Syracuse's final beat of 38 was just too much for the Crimson oarsmen. The Orange eight won by a half length and was going away at the finish