It has been an exciting beginning of season for NU Crew! Over the past two weeks NU Crew has hosted the annual North Shore Channel Challenge and attended Head of the Rock.

The North Shore Channel Challenge, hosted by both Northwestern Crew and North Park University at the Dammrich Rowing Center in Skokie, Il on Sunday, October 5th, was a great event and fantastic kickoff to the season.

With Washington University in St. Louis, University of Illinois, Michigan State University, and Augustana College in attendance, NU Crew made a promising debut in the men’s varsity 4+, women’s varsity 4+, men’s varsity 8+, and women’s varsity 8+ events. Here is a full report of the Challenge’s events!

Sunday’s racing was organized into two flights of boats. The first races, the men’s varsity 8+ and women’s varsity 4+ were a part of the first flight.

Beginning with the men’s 8+, NU Crew placed third out of seven with a time of 13:25, following second place, MSU, by just 10 seconds.

The next races were those of the women’s varsity 4+s with results: Northwestern A placing fifth with a time of 17:17 and Northwestern B placing seventh with a time of 18:07.

The second flight held the men’s varsity 4+ and women’s varsity 8+.

With the women’s varsity 8+ starting first, the women placed third with a time of 16:08. While the men placed fourth with a time of 14:45.

A successful and rain free(!) day of racing yielded promising results for NU Crew’s upcoming fall races! It was also a pleasure to see all the alumni who were able to come out and cheer!

Following the NSCC, on October 12th, NU Crew traveled to Rockford, Illinois for the Head of the Rock Regatta. With beautiful weather and a wonderful welcome from the NU Club of Rockford, NU Crew had a fantastic day for racing!

The racing began with the men’s collegiate 4+ event with both Northwestern A and B entered in the race; with Northwestern A and B placing 5th and 12th out of 20 (times: 16:42.4 and 17:40.2).

The following event was the women’s collegiate 4+. With five members of the women’s team absent due to their participation in the Chicago Marathon, the women’s team was only able to enter one women’s varsity 4+ which yielded a 19th place finish out of 28 competing boats (time: 20:02.9).

The final event for NU Crew was the men’s collegiate 8+ where the men placed 11th out of 22 with a time of 16:17.5.

I think that the results from our past two races can speak for themselves to show that NU Crew is on its way to an exciting and promising fall season!

Northwestern Crew will be attending the Head of the Charles in Boston, MA this weekend and I would like to extend an invitation to all alumni who can come out! I will send out information concerning NU Crew’s events and schedule in the coming day.