This past summer, while Harvard students gamboled at home with friends and freshmen eagerly devoured their QRR study materials, the Harvard men's lightweight crew reached the pinnacle of the college racing world by winning the national championships in Camden, N.J. in June.

Big stuff, recapturing the title the lightweights held once before in 1991 and lost in 1992. But the road to this championship actually started nine months before--in the Czech Republic.

The World Championships

At the 1993 World Championships in Roudnice, Czech Republic, Harvard lightweight Coach Charlie Butt co-coached the national four with coxswain heavyweight crew alongside renowned coach Mike Spracklin.

In a sport in which wins and losses depend as much on trigonometry and physics as brute strength and coordination, Spracklin, according to Butt, refined Butt's understanding of a rowing technique that would make Harvard's season extraordinary.

Spracklin taught Butt an approach to familiarizing his crew with the stroke which maximized the work done by the oar blade in the water based on this principle: If a blade is forced into the water hard enough, Spracklin said, a mound of water forms in front of the blade that exerts a backwards force on the blade and thereby holds it firmly in the water.

This results in more of the work done by the rower going into the motion of the boat rather than into dragging the blade through the water. The actual result is speed.

"He got a specific way to row from Spracklin," senior Sam Truslow said. "It was a great new stroke."

But Butt said that he just took a different educational tack, using physics to give the crew a better understanding of how an efficient stroke worked.

"This was a good approach for the group of people we had," Butt said. "It resulted in a better understanding of the stroke for the crew."

Disappointing Start

Bow to stern last year, the boat was comprised of senior Chris McGarry, junior Field Ogden, senior jeremy Barnum, senior Nathan Hunt, Charlie Braun '93, captain John Roberts, Piotr Sobieszczyk '93, Truslow and coxswain John Ma '93.

Trying to incorporate the new stroke technique, the lightweights began their season somewhat disappointingly--coming in second to Yale at the Head of the Carnegie regatta.

The team rebounded well, however. In its fall race with the Boston Rowing Center (one of the best rowing clubs in the country), the Crimson remained surprisingly competitive.

Working with videotapes of the races, Butt scrutinized every detail of his crew, from the bladework and body position of his rowers to facial expressions--and discovered a technical flaw: at the catch, the stern of the boat was sinking below the water.