Thames Regatta

The English stroke is nearing the end of its course in American rowing. For a good many years nearly every college in the country has run its navy on the American plan. Yet Yale and Harvard stuck to Guy Nickalls, Heber Howe, their various associates, and the styles of the English Thames. Last year Yale went a thousand miles in the opposite direction and summoned Ed Leader, coach from the State of Washington. Leader promptly threw overboard British theories, stroke, rigging. He developed an eight which defeated Pennsylvania, Columbia, Princeton, Cornell, Harvard. Rowing veterans declared his varsity crew, which Harvard trailed by seven lengths, was one of the great eights of 56 years of racing on the New London Thames. His Freshman and Junior varsity crews won with equal distinction. The result seems to speak with decisive finality in the controversy long standing over the merits of the imported and the native systems.