Two unforseen good breaks and one stupendous upset have put Harvard's heavyweight crew in a position to win its biggest victory yet--ai victory more important than last weeks's triumph at the Pan American Games.

At St. Catharines, Ontario, this weeked the crew was scheduled to race for the North American championship against some of the world's finest teams, including a crew from East Germany and one from West Germany, the Achilles and Hector of eight-oared racing.

The first break was the withdrawal of East Germany from the competition because of a political squabble. The second good break came when Harvard and West Germany were slated to race in different trial heats.

Against some of the competition's weaker crews Harvard had no trouble racking up an easy victory in yesterday's trial heat and advancing automatically to Sunday's finals.

The surprise came when West Germany--which everybody figured as the number one crew--was beaten in the second trial heat by New Zealand. This doesn't mean, however, that West Germany is out of the competition. Like Harvard, New Zealand wins an automatic spot in the finals, but all of yesterday's losers enter another heat today, and West Germany should easily make it to the finals.

The smart money is probably still on West Germany in the finals--and New ealand's time yesterday was five seconds beat has been beaten, and no one is quite so pessimistic anymore about Sunday's finals