Though, the crew racing season doesn't begin for nearly seven months, Harvard oarsmen have already begun churning the murky Charles River in fall practice.

"We've got 20-22 days left out on the water," said varsity heavy coach Harvey Love, "and the oarsmen are trying to improve as individuals. Next spring we'll work on the boats." When winter forces them off the water, the crews will practice with the tank in Newell Boat House.

"A coach is almost always optimistic this time of the season," Love remarked, "and I hope it'll be a better boat than last year."

This fall, although he has only three seniors among his 33 oarsmen, Love has retained the stern five from last year's first boat: Douglas Robertson, Spencer Burden, Nick Bancroft, Harry Pollock and Mike Dennis. Love also hopes for some "competitive spirit" from the 22 sophomores on the new squad. Coxswains include two sophomores, William Claflin and John Unkovic, and Junior Edward Washburn.

After a season of varied fortune, the heavies last spring lost the four-mile Yale regatta by about three feet. "It was a real wild race," recalled the coach, "something like that game ending with a field goal Saturday at Cornell.

The rest of the season, Love said, was too confused to measure by a win-loss record. "In the course of the season we defeated every team that defeated us, except Yale and Penn."

The record of the varsity lights last spring was also far from perfect. At the beginning it was marred by a close defeat at Ithaca, and, after several victories, ended with another loss to Cornell at the sprints. Coach Larry Coolidge isn't returning this year; Fred Cabot, freshman lightweight coach last season, will train both the upperclassmen and freshmen.

Besides captain Bob Russell and several others from last year's top two lightweight boats, Cabot has all the oaremen from his 1962 first freshman boat. His coxswains are two juniors, Chris Hamilton and Dave Perkins.