The Harvard heavyweight crew team has a lot of clout these days--sort of like the American Express Card.

The Crimson got its application for the card approved last week by beating some of the top teams in the nation in the Redwood Shores-Stanford Rowing Classic. Back home on the Charles River Saturday, the heavies significantly increased their credit limit with an impressive victory over Princeton and MIT.

Harvard (5-0), finishing only five seconds off the course record, crossed the finish line in 5:49.6 in nearly-perfect racing conditions to claim the Compton Cup. The previously-undefeated Tigers were beaten by almost four seconds and MIT straggled across the finish line 19 second later.

Bank On It

With the Redwood Shores championship already in the bank, Harvard could be considered to have overcome almost all of its most challenging competitors in the nation, except for Navy, Rutgers, and Princeton. This weekend's win over the Tigers was a big addition to the squad's buying power for a national championship.

"Princeton has one of the best crews around," Harvard coxswain Jim Crick said. "Crews like them change from week to week, and we just have to keep getting faster to keep ahead of them."

Princeton hung tough with the Crimson over the first 1000 meters of the race course, but Harvard gradually pulled ahead in the second half to win by a fairly clear margin. Both crews ran an up-tempo race, pushing each other to the extremely-fast times.

"We were running hard right up to the end," Captain Steve Wayne said.

And the squad is still running...to Annapolis, where the Crimson will try and add to its big-money reputation and win the Adams Cup for the first time in four years against Navy and Penn this Saturday.

Lightweights Win Haines

The Harvard lightweight crew team could be accused of looking beyond its most recent opponents to the Harvard-Yale-Princeton Goldthwait Cup races next Saturday in New Haven.

"We approached this race a lot like last weekend's [against Dartmouth and MIT]--focusing on our own boat's objectives" said senior Tom Patterson, discussing the Crimson's race against Navy this Saturday on the Charles River.

But Harvard didn't make the common mistake of acting complacent and losing to a less talented opponent. The Crimson claimed its seventh consecutive Haines Cup by cruising past the Midshipmen in 6:02.8.

Harvard (4-0) jumped out to a one-length lead in the first 500 meters, but Navy hung close until the final 500 meters of the race, where the Crimson sprinted to the final eight-second margin of victory.

"We wanted a faster start this week, which we got," Patterson said, "and the sprint was also very important because we'll need the same next week when Yale and Princeton will probably be with us the whole way."

Harvard defeated Yale earlier in the year in the process of winning the San Diego Crew Classic, and based on the margin of victory against common opponents, the Crimson is running about five seconds ahead of Princeton.

However, the time for looking beyond opponents is gone, and with four impressive victories under its belt, the Crimson are ready to try and claim its first H-Y-P championship since 1980.