In a year when the Harvard heavyweight varsity crew has lost more races than it's won, there aren't too many teams around that have fallen to the Crimson twice.

In fact, there's only one--Northeastern, which took sixth behind fifth-place Harvard at last month's San Diego Crew Classic, and fell to Harvard Saturday on the Charles.

And with the slight distraction presented by the Huskies out of the way, the Crimson immediately turned to the real business at hand--training for next weekend's Eastern Sprints.

"It was a good race for us and we're building toward the Sprints," senior seven-man Jamie Fargo said of the varsity eight's 6:51.9, 2000 meters on Saturday, seven seconds faster than Northeastern's 6:59.

Harvard (now 2-3) again proved the master of the bad weather that has plagued its races all year. Despite rowing three hours before the original 11 a.m. starting time to allow for the best possible water, the Crimson still faced a gusting headwind and a strong down stream current.

Not to mention the fact that. "Oh my god, that was so cold," in the words of shivering, wringing-wet varsity cox Devin, Mahony, whose exuberant oarsmen sent her for a swim.

After starting at about 40 strokes per minute and settling to a relatively low 34 to 35 by the halfway mark, the oarsmen already had a boatlength on the Huskies and proved unstoppable, even by a mighty gust of wind that came straight at both shells just before the finish.

"We could've swum the boat across the line at that point and still won," sophomore five-seat Steve Potter said.

The junior varsity eight probably could have swum the whole course and still come out ahead, but not by the two boatlengths they had on the Huskies at the finish.

The j.v., with its only loss a second-place finish (behind the University of Washington) at San Diego, rebounded from a four-seat disadvantage to bring some Husky pelts back to Newell Boathouse. And junior cox Dave Corey kept his almost flawless record--one loss in dual meets over two years--intact.

The Crimson second eight will be favored at next week's races, as will the undefeated first and second freshman eights. The first frosh look Northeastern by what cox Ed Castro called "the curvature of the earth," and will look to do the same to Syracuse.

One school's first freshmen have never won the Sprints two years in a row, "and we would like to break that pattern," said two man Max Drake.

And Fargo boiled down the first boat's contest to a matter of revenge. The third-ranked crew in the East, the Crimson is "going to train very, very hard all week and neglect our studies and see if we can best Navy and Penn."

Harvard-NU Regatta

On the Charles