On Saturday the boys traveled to Deerfield’s boathouse on a picturesque stretch of the Connecticut River, which after the week’s rain, was flowing at a rapid 35,000 CFPS. This made for some fast and exciting racing throughout the afternoon. 

 The Middlesex 4th boat had one of their tighter races of the season. After getting a good start off the line, they were even with Nobles, who slowly took seats on Middlesex after the first 500.  Deerfield quickly out paced both Nobles and Middlesex, who fought each other through the middle part of the course,until Nobles took a nice sprint to finish 4.5 seconds up on Middlesex. 

 Deerfield also got out ahead early in the 3rd boat races, which left Middlesex and Nobles to race it out for second.  Middlesex got a short lead over Nobles off of the line, and built on that lead through the 750, at which point Nobles started moving back up. Middlesex responded with a move and was able to keep Nobles back by just over a second by the finish line. 

 The Middlesex 2nd boat rocketed off the line, quickly taking almost a  boat length over both Deerfield and Nobles after five strokes, until the port side caught a medium-level crab, which interrupted their rhythm going into the body of the race. Once they recovered, they were down a seat to both crews, and maintained their focus all the way down the course to stay connected. Deerfield and Nobles were neck-and-neck all the way down,beating Middlesex by 8.2 and 8 seconds, respectively. 

 The 1st boat race was tight right off the line, with all three crews nearly even after the first 10 strokes.  After the crews settled into the body of their pieces, Deerfield had two seats on Middlesex, and Middlesex two seats on Nobles.  The three crews raced hard down the course.  By the 750, Deerfield had a touch of open water on Middlesex, who had a couple of seats of open water on Nobles.  At that point, Middlesex made a move back on Deerfield to achieve some overlap, which they maintained until 350m to go, at which point Deerfield moved away in the sprint and ended up coming across the line 6.5 second ahead of Middlesex. 

 Nice racing to everyone, and thank you to Deerfield for hosting. 

 1st Boat –

Deerfield – 4:01.0
Middlesex – 4:07.5
Nobles – 4:10.8

 2nd Boat –
Deerfield – 4:37.7
Nobles – 4:37.9
Middlesex – 4:45.9

 3rd Boat –
Deerfield – 4:21.4
Middlesex – 4:38.1
Nobles – 4:39.4

 4th Boat –
Deerfield – 4:38.5
Nobles – 4:49.4
Middlesex – 4:54.0