Henley Royal Regatta

It was nine years ago that James Delaney first considered picking up an oar. He was riding in the car with his parents in Brigantine, N.J., when he spotted a boatload of 9-year-olds paddling by. "It looked like fun," said Delaney, now a senior at the Haverford School. "I thought it was something I'd like to try. " Delaney not only tried rowing, he mastered it, and today he's a favorite to win the first-place medal in boys' singles skulling at the Stotesbury Cup Regatta on the Schuylkill.

For two days of racing, Greg Mullen has ignored the champagne sippers on the riverbank and the yachts skirting the regatta course in Henley-on-Thames, England. "We just go, row and get out of there before anyone has a chance to even talk to us," Mullen said. Mullen and his boatmates from La Salle High School's varsity eight crew could well have been the talk of the Henley Royal Regatta yesterday. La Salle won its second match race of the regatta, coming from behind to advance to the quarterfinals of the Princess Elizabeth Challenge Cup, the grand prize of schoolboy rowing worldwide.

Five months pregnant and seeking a special vacation before the arrival of our first baby, I accompanied my husband, Ken Rowles, on a business trip to London. We coordinated the trip, which spanned the Fourth of July holiday weekend, with a good friend, Cindy Harvey, who is a Foreign Service officer posted in London. As a London insider, Cindy took us to two events that made this recent visit memorable for two repeat visitors to the British capital. The first highlight was the Henley Royal Regatta, a rowing regatta that dates to 1839.

At the Henley Royal Regatta on England's Thames River, rowing is only part - some might say only a small part - of the weeklong festivities. Thousands of spectators line the river banks, but they tend to spend more time sipping Pimms, the preferred drink of high society, and looking at one another than watching the action on the river. The competitors themselves get into the social swing, wearing double- breasted blazers and straw boaters between races. No T-shirts and painters' hats; after all, there are 150 years of tradition to uphold.

Dad Vail gone? Philly may as well have lost the soft pretzel. In case you haven't heard, Dad Vail, the largest and one of the most prestigious collegiate regattas in North America, is moving to Rumson, N.J. It's the economy: not enough local corporate sponsorship, and not enough money coming from the city to cover the event's cost. Rumson officials pledged $250,000 to Dad Vail's organizers. That was enough. But Dad Vail belongs in Philly. It's been held on the Schuylkill every spring since 1953.

Today will be a busy day for four members of the Malvern Prep crew team. It should be a busy summer for them, too. The quad boat of Mike Donohue, Mike Bohs, Mike Rawlings and Brandon Hanna is scheduled to race at 8:20 this morning in New Jersey in the trials for the under-23 world championships. The four then will board a plane at 6 p.m. for England, where they will compete in the Henley Royal Regatta next week. "They just love to race," Malvern coach Craig Hoffman said of the four, who finished the spring scholastic season undefeated.

They never grew tired of the rowing, the traveling or each other. When Malvern Prep's crew wasn't tearing through the water on two separate continents over the last two weeks, it was flying to another international regatta. The Friars' quad of seniors Jim McCrindle, Joe Smart, Larkin Williams and Trevor Griffen finished second in the Fawley Challenge Cup at the storied Henley Royal Regatta on July 6. They advanced to the championship race from an original 46-boat field at Henley-on-Thames, England.

Sidney Salomon, 90, a retired sales manager, rower, and decorated World War II veteran whose experience scaling the cliffs at Omaha Beach inspired a movie scene, died of cancer Jan. 21 at Pine Run Health Center in Doylestown. As a 30-year-old Army Ranger captain, Mr. Salomon led 37 men onto Omaha Beach during the D-Day invasion at Normandy. Nine survived. He later recounted the event for historians including Stephen Ambrose, whose bestseller D-Day was used extensively as a source for the movie Saving Private Ryan.

About 80 Yale University freshmen gathered in the dark basement of ancient Payne Whitney gym for crew tryouts in the fall of 1998. Every prospective rower - they were not even novices yet - was a walk-on. All but one dropped off the team over the ensuing weeks, months or years. The only remaining walk-on rower is Radnor resident Will Ralph, a 1998 graduate of Shipley School. Ralph, a 6-foot-1, 155-pounder, rose from those basement beginnings to rowing royalty. The stroke of Yale's varsity lightweight eight that won the Intercollegiate Rowing Association national championship on June 1 on Camden County's Cooper River, Ralph and the Bulldogs are set to row in the Henley Royal Regatta at Henley-on-Thames, England.

St. Joseph's Prep entered its semifinal race against Britain's Eton College, the most famous prep school in the world, as an overwhelming underdog. The race demonstrated why. The Etonians ended the Prep's championship season, and its three-race victory streak at the Henley Royal Regatta, by overpowering the St. Joe's heavyweight varsity eight, winning by 2 1/2 boat lengths. "They just jumped off on us right from the start," said oarsman Al Wachlin, a senior from the Fairmount section of Philadelphia.