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Competitive rowing has had a long and storied history, both nationwide and abroad, with many of the sport’s most prominent regattas having been held for centuries. The sport’s most famous and prestigious race, the Henley Royal Regatta, first debuted in 1839, followed soon after by the first intercollegitate competition in the United States, the Harvard-Yale Regatta, or “The Race,” two decades before its football counterpart, The Game. Despite the modern success and fame of the Head of the Charles Regatta, the race was founded just 60 years ago.

The race started as the brainchild of Cambridge Boat Club members D’Arcy MacMahon, Howard McIntyre, and Jack Vincent. In 1964 the trio sought to break up the monotony of the fall crew training with an informal regatta before crew’s main spring season. Harvard sculling instructor Ernest Arlett proposed the idea for a “head of the river race,” a time-trial format that would suit the narrow, windy nature of the Charles River. Thus, the HOCR was born, and despite MacMahon saying in a 50 Year Anniversary documentary that it was thought that “the Head of the Charles, like its namesake, will surely lose its head,” 60 years later, the Charles – and its head— attracts thousands of spectators to its banks every October to watch rowers of all ages and abilities compete.

The first iteration of the race took place on October 16th, 1965, with over 250 oarsmen competing in nearly 100 boats and barely any spectators. With all racing finished in just two hours, the competition was nevertheless still fierce, with the “four with cox” Penn boat upsetting the Harvard boat of Paul Gunderson, Geoff Picard, Harry Pollock, and Bill Weber, who had represented the United States in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

Attendance and competition skyrocketed the year after MacMahon humorously wrote in the US rowing annual activities report, that “countless thousands lined the shores” was taken literally by readers. Just two years later, the Regatta became the largest in North America, attracting spectators and oarsmen from across the country, and becoming what in 1968 the Crimson would call “for rowing what the Boston marathon is for running.”

As the race continued to grow, the HOCR made waves for female rowers, with Harvard economics professor Gail Pierson Cromwell becoming the first woman to compete in 1969. Racing in the novice singles event and beating half a dozen men, she recounts in the 1996 HOCR program that “nobody said I couldn’t enter and no one made much of a fuss.” In a pre-Title IX era when women couldn’t even run the Boston Marathon or row in the Olympics, Cromwell’s performance inspired race directors to introduce the women’s single event in 1970. Cromwell would go on to win the event for the next five years as she continued to pave the way for women’s rowing for years to come.

By the mid-1980s, the HOCR had exploded in popularity, becoming as much of a social spectacle as it was a rowing event. College kids lined the banks of the Charles as the race became known as an “aquatic Woodstock,” resembling more of a large party than a regatta. There was even a tradition of spectators lowering down cases of beers from Eliot Bridge to crews that had just finished racing. However, the notoriety of the race had grown so significant that in 1987, the race cracked down, prohibiting open fires, overnight camping, and alcohol in order to return the regatta to its rowing roots.

In 1996, HOCR experienced its first cancellation in the face of the “Hundred-Year Storm” with over six inches of rain and 70 mph winds. However, this cancellation offered race directors the chance to expand the regatta in 1997 into a two-day event, allowing for safeguards against unpredictable weather conditions as well as helping the race accommodate the increasing number of events and participants.

The Regatta had been international for years, but in 2006 the first team from mainland China, Peking University, participated and had an unfortunate collision by Weeks Bridge. The volunteer cox on the boat, Amy Sun, stood on the sinking vessel and warned other crews to avoid the area. The Peking crew not only represented the significant international presence of HOCR, but also the difficulty of the course and the merits of good sportsmanship.

In 2008, HOCR solidified itself as a family affair with the introduction of a parent-child doubles event, and by 2009 an alumni race was held in addition to the men's, women's, and youth events. Only a year later, in 2010, the first adaptive events were introduced, permanently making HOCR a race that anyone can compete in.

2017 bore witness to true rowing excellence with thirty five records being broken on the Charles. Two of these, the California’s Men’s Championship Eight and Sudbury RC’s Great Eight beat previously held times by more than thirty seconds.

HOCR was not immune to the impacts of Covid-19, with the in-person 2020 race canceled but efforts were still being made to connect rowers across the world via races that took place on ergs. In 2021, the year following the pandemic, the race was officially expanded to a three day schedule.

The modern day HOCR could not look more different than its first. With 12,000 rowers from across the world and 74 different events, the regatta has become a community staple. The success of the world’s largest regatta is owed in large part to the efforts of volunteers. HOCR has always been made possible by their efforts, and continues to thrive thanks to a team of over 2,400. As MacMahon says in the documentary, HOCR has to be “fun for the people who row in it, fun for the people who work on it, and fun for the people through whose neighborhood it goes.”

– Staff writer Bianca M. Egan can be reached at bianca.egan@thecrimson.com.

– Staff writer Sofia Zhang can be reached at sofia.zhang@thecrimson.com.