On Thursday, when a late afternoon rain worsened conditions, the river was closed for practice. Gavin White, Temple University men's coach, had to call his varsity and junior varsity heavyweight eight boats in after only 20 minutes.
"It was really bad," White said. "You couldn't take 10 strokes without hitting some type of debris. We didn't want to risk any injury to the boys or damage to the boats."
High water and debris had last played serious havoc with the Dad Vail slate in 1998. That year, Saturday's semifinals and finals were postponed until Sunday, and an abbreviated championship round, for those crews that did not have travel commitments and stayed in the area, was held.
"Racing shells are so fragile," Kenneth Shaw Jr., vice president of the regatta, said. "And they're expensive, in the neighborhood of $30,000. You don't go out and play demolition derby with debris."
Weather and water conditions permitting, head-to-head races will resume today. However, the order of the 19 events has been reversed. The premier events, starting with the men's and women's varsity heavyweight eight semifinals, will begin at 7 and 7:21 a.m., respectively. Instead of those Day 2 events concluding in late afternoon, as usual, the respective champions will be decided around noon.
Yesterday morning, Temple's men's varsity heavyweight eight placed 12th overall with a clocking of 4 minutes, 7.71 seconds. The Owls, finishing among the top 18, advanced to today's semifinals. The schools to beat include Michigan (first yesterday in 4:03.00), defending champ Purdue (4:04.54) and Rochester (4:04.83).
