While the rest of the student body was enjoying the Saturday sun on the banks of the Charles, the Harvard heavyweight varsity crew was hard at work on the river, earning a hard-fought three-and-a-half second victory over Brown.

The win over the Bruins is the second impressive showing in two weeks for Coach Harry Parker's Eight, who opened the '87 campaign by capturing the San Diego Crew Classic last Saturday.

Saturday's races didn't all go the Crimson's way, however, as a strong Bruin JV boat pulled off a signifigant upset of its Harvard counterpart, and the Brown freshmen downed a shaky Crimson crew by a two-and-a-half seconds.

The varsity victory keeps the Stein Cup in Cambridge for the second consecutive year.

"We're in the position now that we're the boat to beat," Crimson stroke George Hunnewell said after the race. "We just have to make sure that we get faster every week. There are a lot of tough crews out there."

Indeed, the race followed a typical Crimson pattern: stay close early and move through in the last 1000 meters with strength and finesse.

Brown, smarting from an upset loss to B.U. last weekend, came off the starting mark very aggressively, and had earned a two-seat advantage by the 500 meter point.

"Their aggressiveness didn't surprise me at all," Parker said.

The Crimson crew remained as composed as their coach, and began to close on the Bruins at about 900 meters with careful, strong rowing.

At the half-way mark of the perfectly flat-water race course, the two crews were even. Harvard fought for a single-seat margin at 1200 meters, but it was the final 800 meters that were all Crimson, as the heavies steadily pulled away to break the line almost a full length ahead of the tiring Bruins, 5:53.0 to 5:56.4.

"It was a good solid race for us," noted a quietly pleased Parker. "We didn't pick the stroke rating up, we just moved steadily through them."

In the JV contest, Harvard was the pre-race favorite, based on its own very convincing win last weekend in San Diego. But Brown's shell contained four oarsmen who had occupied the varsity boat the previous Saturday, and the Bruins raced like they were after varsity seats.

The Brown JV jumped out to a four-seat lead at 500, and withstood Crimson power moves at 800, 1000, and 1200 meters, to maintain a three-seat margin with 500 meters to go. The Crimson rowed furiously, but couldn't close, and finished two seconds back in 6:00.6.

The winning time of 5:58.7 was just two seconds away from that posted by the Brown varsity earlier in the day.

The freshman race saw Brown grab the lead immediately, and pull gradually away from the rough-rowing Yardlings the rest of the way. The Bruins finished in 6:05.9 to Harvard's 6:08.2.