It’s an even year, and that used to mean something rather fatalistic to the Harvard varsity lightweights.

But the weight of history and of a past wrought with the oddest of triumphs has been relegated to its proper use in the past tense.

When a Harvard crew team that had claimed seven consecutive national championships in odd years—and zero in even years—finished an uncharacteristic fourth in last year’s national championship race, both history and the Harvard lightweights were vanquished in one 2,000-meter course.

Even-year seasons? According to the IRA record books, they were a lost cause for the Crimson.

This even-year season begins without the IRA trophy—a stinging reminder to a varsity eight that went almost wire-to-wire as the nation’s No. 1 crew last year.

“We’re always looking to start a new streak, but we’ve put it all behind us,” lightweight captain Dan Reid said. “We’re focusing on this year, how to move the boat fast this year, and playing it as it comes.”

Two months of work on the water and a winter’s worth of training get put to the test for the first time this weekend, when Harvard travels to Ithaca, N.Y., and New Jersey for the first dual competition of the 2006 season. The Crimson will face almost half of its EARC opponents over the weekend, squaring off against Penn and Cornell on Saturday and following up on Sunday with a four-boat race with Delaware, Georgetown, and Rutgers.

“It’s a great chance to learn a lot,” Reid said of the stacked opening weekend. “It is a bit scary—we’re very cognizant that this is a year-long process. If we come out of this weekend in good shape or in not good shape, either way we can’t afford to rest on our laurels.”

Harvard has quite the task in front of it if the program is to begin a new streak of sorts. The Crimson lost four oarsmen from last year’s varsity eight, which won the varsity’s first Sprints crown since 1997. The second varsity—which boasts two years of undefeated dual racing capped with two consecutive Sprints titles—must overcome the loss of four more to graduation.

And Saturday’s race against Cornell and Penn features added drama: the lightweights overcame a sizeable deficit at the halfway mark to beat the Big Red on the opening weekend last year.

“Everyone in this league is fast—we’ve seen that over the past three years,” senior Wes Kauble said. “You can’t afford to take any opponent in this league lightly. If you have an off-day, you will be beaten.”

The Crimson barely nudged both Yale and Cornell to claim the 2005 Sprints crown. The top four finishers at last year’s Sprints—Harvard, Yale, Cornell, and Navy—will again be fighting for the mere inches of space that so often separate first from second in the EARC.

“I don’t think you can get any tighter than last year’s Sprints finish,” Reid said. “The lightweight league has gotten so competitive over the last couple years, so we know that we’ll never have the luxury of a row over. It’s always ultra-competitive and tight and you’ve got to go out and do what you do.”

The lightweights learned that lesson well last year against Georgetown, which handed Harvard its only dual defeat of the 2005 season. An April 22 race with Navy in Annapolis, Md., followed by a showdown with Yale and Princeton the next week rounds out the EARC dual season for Harvard, which gathered momentum last season on two comeback wins over the Bulldogs and the Midshipmen.

But this season, like its predecessor, begins as a question mark for all boats in the perennially tight EARC, and few conclusions will be made before Eastern Sprints on May 21.

“[Coach] Charley [Butt] is a master of building to a perfect crescendo—to peak just at the right time,” Reid said. “We have faith in his process, and he’s going to get it done, and we’ll be ready by that time. We have lots of time to make sure that we get it right.”

—Staff writer Aidan E. Tait can be reached at atait@fas.harvard.edu.