To say that the Harvard men's swimming team gunning for a fifth consecutive Eastern Seaboard Championship is a depleted squad surpasses the most complete understatement. But competing without the services a head coach, a captain and potential All-American, and a University record-holding sprinter, the Crimson has jumped to a 64 point lead at the U.S. Naval Acadamy, site of this year's competition.

With 12 Harvard swimmers scoring in the meet's first five individual events, the aquamen notched 156 points--far below the 228 points they tallied a year ago at west Point on the way to a new Eastern team scoring record of 662 point Surprise contender Brown holds second with 92 points, followed closely by Princeton with 85.

Noticeably missing from the Harvard lineup is senior Captain Ted Chappell, a certain NCAA championship qualifier, stricken with an intestinal infection last week that grounded him in his Eliot House room. Also sidelined by injury is junior sprint star Mike Miao, who has seen only limited practice time since early December when he developed a nagging shoulder problem.

"I'm very pleased where we are, all things considered." Assistant Coach Ken Oberg said last night. Oberg led the Crimson through last night's action after Head Coach Joe Bernal was forced back to Cambridge by an illness in his family after yesterday morning's preliminaries. Oberg said last night he was unsure when Bernal, who has engineered Harvard's climb to Eastern swimming dominance in six years, would return to Annapolis.

The Crimson's biggest win of the day came on the one-meter diving board, as sophomore All-American Dan Watson outbounced everyone in sight on the way to a 474.11 total. Harvard's other flyers, considered the best diving corps in the East, finished disappointingly deep in the pack. Senior Jeff Mule, second on the low board a year ago, finished ninth and junior Karl llig, sixth in 1982, placed 10th.

Sophomore individual medley specialist Dave Barnes came up a little short for the second year in a row, dropping the 200 meter IM (on the 25 meter short course) to Princeton senior Mile Smith, Barnes, an All-American in the 400 yard IM, finished in 2:04.3, edging senior teammate Tom Verdin by 4 seconds.

In the 400 meter free, junior Courtney Roberts battled to a fourth place finish with a 3.56.3 clocking Columbia's Tony Corbisiero. American record holder in the 800 meter free, won the race in a meet-record 3:47.4.

Harvard closed out the evening with a third-place finish in the 400 meter medley relay. Relays from Princeton and Brown edged the Crimson squad of Dave Phillips, Jim Carbone. Peter Egan and Verdin.

"Basically, that relay, with Ted [Chappell] or Mike [Miao] at the end, would have won," said Oberg.