Womens 8 Boat

Question
JV 8+ Boat 5000 Meter time of 20 minutes flat. How's that for a JV Girls Boat race time? Is 4 minutes per 1K good, bad or ugly? I noticed they ran better than the Varsity Boats & alot of the 4+ boats.

Answer
Hi Mark: It's tough to judge how well a boat raced solely on time.  So many factors affect a boat's time, such as presence of head or tailwind, current, choppiness of water, etc.  Even the fact that the JV times were better than the Varsity's time is inconclusive because water conditions can change dramatically in a short period of time.  And I would expect an eight to beat a 4+ unless the eight has problems.

I don't know if this is High School or College JV.  I assume high school, because you sound like an interested parent.  The simplest barometer is to look at what place her boat was against other girl's JV boats and not compare her times against other division's

I compared your daughter's race time to the results of this year's Head of the Charles Regatta.  It's a 3-mile, which is fairly close to 5000 meters.  Out of 74 boats that entered, her boat would have finished in 60th place.  But this is against very good varsity high school girl's crews.  

All in all, sounds like your daughter's crew had a good race.

Regards/AP