Boston Rowers Win Twice, Atone for Earlier Failures

Two titles for the United States at the world’s most famous rowing event, the Henley Royal Regatta, helped atone for defeats in the final of the two leading events for eights Sunday.

The victories, in the Double Sculls Challenge Cup and the Wyfold Challenge Cup for fours, both were achieved by the Charles River Rowing Assn. of Boston.

In the fours, the victory was over the Nottinghamshire County Rowing Assn. of England. The winning margin was 4 1/2 lengths. In a tricky crosswind both crews received warnings for erratic steering.

The double sculls’ victory was achieved by Jeff Parks and Dan Chernoff, who have been impressive all week. As expected, they defeated the unseeded British finalists, Rob Luke and Lewis Hancock of the Llandaff and Derwent Rowing clubs, by 3 1/2 lengths.

Henley 1986 may be better remembered, however, for the tremendous races that had the University of Pennsylvania barely losing in the final of the regatta’s premier event, The Grand Challenge Cup, and the Harvard University freshmen losing a magnificent struggle in the Ladies Challenge Plate final.

Penn, trying to repeat its Grand Challenge victory of 1955, were underdogs against Nautilus, the British national eight. But the Ivy Leaguers led for half the race and were beaten by less than a length.

“Perhaps they floundered a little when Nautilus went past them,” Penn Coach Stan Bergman said. “But it would have been easy to say ‘there goes a national eight’ and quit. But they battled really well to keep in touch.”

The Harvard freshmen fought back to even closer contention against the experienced Irish crew, Neptune. From being three-fourths of a length down at the three-quarter mile mark, it was within a canvas near the finish, before losing by two-thirds of a length.

“I think we were a little bit shaken that we were behind at the start,” said Harvard cox Chauncey Wood.