First-year women's rowing coach Mike Lane was looking to rock the proverbial boat in his team's opening race of the spring. The bigger surprise was that the Schuylkill River did more of the rocking than was planned.
At Saturday's Connell Cup, an event that hosted Yale and Columbia, the current, which registered at 15,000 cubic feet per second, swept tree limbs, plants, mud and other types of debris into the water.
"For this year for sure, and [in] all my time at Penn, this is the strongest current I've been in," Lane said.
Most boats finished a minute or so faster than a normal current would permit, but not without a struggle.
Penn, which finished last in the regatta, had trouble adjusting to the unyielding current. A novice eight boat even ran into a submerged tree at the beginning of the race, delaying them significantly.
"The starts were pretty flustered because of the current speed. Overall, it went pretty well, and it was a step in the right direction," Lane said. "It didn't meet my expectations, but I set pretty high expectations."
Penn's boats were not the only victims of the Schuylkill's high water level and strong current. Columbia's novice four boat became stuck at the start of their race, drew their oars in and lost balance and flipped over into the cold water. Due to the accident, the novice four race was scratched; the rowers, however, emerged safe.
The Quakers took first in the varsity B four race with a time of 6:49.8, as well as second in the novice eight, the second varsity eight and varsity four. The Elis had success in the varsity eights and the four, taking the top place in them and going home with first overall.
The results were a definite step up from last year's Connell Cup, but neither the coaches nor the players strayed far from the subject of improvement.
"I think we can build on what we did today. It's not necessarily where we want to be, but it's a step in the right direction," said co-captain Maura Kelley.
"We usually focus on the body of the race, and all of our crews did a nice job in the middle," Lane said. "The stuff that we're going to now focus on would be the starts and the sprints."
Penn will meet Columbia and Yale again in May at the Ivy League's biggest event, the Eastern Sprints - maybe this time in much calmer waters.
