HENLEY-ON-THAMES – The Big Red lightweight varsity eight defeated Algemene Amsterdamsche Studenten Roeivereniging Skøll by nearly three lengths this morning to advance to the semifinals of the Temple Challenge Cup at the 175th annual Henley Royal Regatta. The Big Red will face Oxford Brookes University tomorrow at 4:20 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time (11:20 a.m. EST).
 
The heavyweight 4- fell to Leander by one-and-three-quarter lengths in the Visitors' Challenge Cup. 

How To Follow The Action
Cornell Twitter
Henley Royal Regatta Twitter 
Regatta Radio Twitter 
Live Audio 
 
Coach Kennett
My trip continues to have odd problems. What do you do with an 8+ of young men when they get knocked out on day one? We have watched so much rowing. We needed to do some rowing. We decided to wash the bottom of the boat off before we return it to home. So this morning before the regatta started we procured a launch and took a little adventure. Upstream we went, opened the lock by hand, and rowed in. Open the sluice and filled it up, open the door and row out. I had 3.5 miles of PRISTINE WATER, an 8+ of guys who needed coaching, and perfect conditions! It is one of those trips and adventures the guys will never forget for a number of reasons. 
 
First we were the first crew off the dock at some crazy early hour. Second, up through the locks we went. Very neat adventure involving huge doors, hand cranks, water dropping or raising 6 feet etc. Third they made me get hotter than themselves due to the locks being manual opening and closing (imagine a huge wheel that needs to be spun around about 150 times to open them)! And finally and possibly the funniest twist … as I was getting all excited about one of the guys making a technical change, I stopped the boat and started to quiz him about what he was doing and he was very distant. Suddenly he spurts out "Coach I am going to vomit!" Well that about sums up the stay for the heavyweight freshman 8+. Just a tough go of it.
 
Meanwhile the 4- would race today. As I indicated yesterday it would need a minor miracle to beat the Leander Boat. I watched them, timed them, found their names out, and they are really good. In the launch I discussed the stats with their coaches. On paper they were the same weight as us, but that is deceiving. Our biggest guy weighs 17 pounds more than their biggest guy, meaning really we were a bit smaller with one exception. On the erg their slowest erg was 6:04 and fastest was 5:57, where our slowest was 6:09 and fastest was 6:06, making for a seven second difference in their favor. One of their rowers had won gold medals at U23 games in a lightweight event, AND a heavyweight event. Between the four of them they had seven U23 medals! We have one bronze. I will stop here. This was a varsity versus a jayvee. We are developing, they are developed. As their coaches said to me, we have supplied our national team with 16 new senior team members since the LONDON OLYMPICS … wow.
 
The day was bright, sunny, warm, and a killer cross head wind. Our job was to make it a race. July 4th, the USA versus GB, in boats … sort of seemed like an old dual. The problem was the dual would not go our way. In rather short form they were able to control us, and a bit further on they just out did our effort. Their rowing was so pretty, so flat, and strong we were in another time zone. We pulled, and we raced, and they went, but we just were not good enough to play. The conditions made the result even bigger because of the gusts the boat would twist of course, they would take a bad stroke making the matter worse, and then correct it. This all becomes very inefficient. We would lose by a fair amount. 
 
In the launch my coxswain Vik rode with me, and etched in our minds how good the Leander boat looked. We will begin working to make our boats better. Meanwhile the lightweight boat had another good race and beat a Dutch crew easily. We had been anticipating a tough race, but the Dutch fell off the pace just before the Barrier so the guys had a good win, and can start to focus on tomorrow. They will face Oxford Brookes University. They seem to be a very good boat, so we will be keeping our fingers crossed.

Thanks for all your support and I will update with the lightweight event tomorrow.