To the casual observer of tomorrow's Head of the Charles it might seem unlikely, but there are bigger and more prestigious regattas. Jamie Hanson is making a habit of rowing in them.

Last spring he held the six-seat in Harvard's first freshman heavyweight boat, the eight that won its event at the Royal Henley Regatta in London in July the only American winners.

And that wasn't even his debut on the international rowing scene. Hanson first rowed at the age of 10, but didn't become serious about the sport until 1979, when he started training on a river near his home in Mississauga. Ontario. A year later, he finished ninth in sculling at the Youth World Championships in Belgium.

As he races today--even though it will be as part of the same Harvard eight that rowed at Henley--it won't be part of preparation for another year of rowing for the Crimson. Instead, he's taking a year off from school, shooting for a berth on the Canadian Olympic team that will row in Los Angeles.

The transition from rowing in an eight to sculling in the Olympics may be his biggest roadblock. But his experience in the freshman crew encouraged him to try his hand in an event in which he has a ways to go to catch the cream of the crop, who are mostly five to 10 years older than him.

Under the coaching of Ted Washburn, never known for going lightly on his rowers, the top boat last year transformed itself from "a disaster" [as Hanson puts it] early in the year to a Henley-caliber crew by the summer. Hanson hopes he can improve his sculling in the same way before the Canadian Olympic trials in May. "I want to see how good I could get in a single," he says, "and the Olympics came along at the right time for me to give it a try... I love this sport, and I love to see myself make progress... If my training doesn't put me in the Olympics, that will be perfectly understandable... As long as I achieve my goal (of improving)."