Since September, the Harvard Varsity Lightweight (HVL) Crew has trained for nearly 540 hours. So far, that work has led to positive results in just over 18 minutes of racing.

This year's varsity eight contains a healthy mix of sophomores, juniors, and seniors: (bow to stern) sophomore Noah Bloom, Co-Captain Dave Weiss, sophomore Tobias Wehrli, senior James Lenhart, junior Gus Maclaurin, sophomore Jesse Elzinaga, Co-Captain Tom Fallows and sophomore Richie McCormack in the stroke seat. Junior Sujit Raman wears the headset in the coxswain seat.

The First Varsity (IV) boat is coached by Charlie Butt, now in his twelfth year with the program. Butt, who himself is a former US national team rower, has coached Harvard crews to five National Championships.

In lightweight rowing, the National Championship is earned by winning the Intercollegiate Rowing Association (IRA) National Championships in late May, although the Ivy League's Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges (EARC) Championships, held the prior weekend, is often regarded as the second element required for the national championship.

This year's IV has performed well, winning the first three races of its brief six-race season. On April 3, they drove past Cornell and Penn at the Matthews Cup, held in Philadelphia on the Schuylkill River. One week later they beat Dartmouth and MIT decisively in the Biglin Bowl, which took place on he home course. The next day, they journeyed to Princeton for a showdown with Rutgers, where again they prevailed by over eight seconds on the 2000-meter course.

Happily, the entire program has enjoyed success, as the second varsity, led by juniors Aric Christal, Don Casey, and Scott McCray, has also won its three races.

However, as any Harvard oarsman will remind you, the real test comes annually on this week, when Harvard, Yale, and Princeton do battle at the highly contested Goldthwait Cup. The HYPs, for short, are often a prelude to the EARC Sprints Championship and the national championship. In some years, the crew that has won at HYPs has gone on to be Eastern and national champions.

"This happens every year; the toughest competition comes at HYPs," Weiss said.

Last year's varsity eight, of which Weiss, Lenhart, Maclaurin, and Fallows were all part of, lost to both opponents at HYPs, and went on to finish second at Easterns and third at nationals.

"I think we're all haunted by that last race. We tried a number of different innovations, but, in the net, did not execute properly," Weiss said.

Actually, in the past decade, the HVL. program has followed a striking even-odd year pattern of results, winning in the odd years and falling short in the even years. As far back as 1993, the varsity boat won the national championship. Yet, in 1994, with six returning seniors who were all national champions from the year before, the crew was unable to pull everything together, coming up short in both end-of-the-season races.

True to this seemingly pre-destined rate, the 1995 varsity regrouped after a defeat at HYPS and won both Easterns and nationals. The pattern continued for the 1996 crew, who lost to Princeton at nationals by the smallest margin in recent memory. Race officials actually spent 10 minutes reviewing video the determine who won. In the end they said that Princeton has prevailed by the length of the rubber bow ball at the end of the boat--about two inches. And that tiny difference sent one team into greatest elation and the other into the depths of despair. 1997 captain Ryan Wise carried a bow ball around with him, signifying the margin after 2,000 meters, to guide him through the next year of training.

Tim Cullen '96, who is currently the freshman lightweight coach, also participated in that fateful race. For Cullen and his senior teammates, even the national championship from the year before could not shake the demons. Cullen cites that one race as the major motivator in his decision to train for the national team. He has spent the last three years pursuing that dream while trying to forget the Princeton loss.

Of course in 1997, after the drama of the previous year, the varsity boat won both EARC and IRA victories, and then, still following this odd even curse, the 1998 crew fell to their old nemesis, Princeton, at nationals. Last year was Maclaurin's and Weiss' first year on the varsity boat, so unlike Fallows and Lenhart, they have not won a national championship.

If we were to simply abide by the patterns of history, given that this is 1999, an odd year in the vicious cycle of victory and defeat, then the Crimson may be predetermined to win the national championship. But these athletes quickly disregard any superstitious prophesies, and are aware that a national championship is hardly a given.