Stanford Men's Rowing finished a successful trip to the Northeast on Sunday as the men's four captured the Championship Four class at the Head of the Charles Regatta in Boston, Mass.

The crew of the A boat featuring coxswain Nathalie Weiss, Austin Hack, Oivind Lorentzen, Scott Roycroft and Kaess Smit successfully ran the famous HOC gauntlet, in which boats are released from the starting gate in 10-second intervals, racing for time over the three-mile serpentine course. The course features seven bridges, the 90-degree "Weeks Bridge" turn and "Dead Man's Curve" through the final Eliot Bridge.

The four finished the course in a time of 16:50.385, over six seconds faster than the runner-up crew from Washington and 14 seconds ahead of the USRowing entry.

The Stanford B entry, consisting of coxswain Sierra Manker, Alec Macrae, Will Faulkner, Andrew Terajewicz and Jason Lupatkin finished 10th with a time of 17:27.763.

"The team gave great effort in classic New England fall weather," said Stanford men's rowing head coach Craig Amerkhanian. "Windy and rough, we raced fierce and won this big race. Finishing first and 10th is a solid fall result. We have been on the water for three weeks. The joys of work are present on our squad."

The Head of the Charles Regatta is the largest rowing event in the world, with more than 9,000 rowers competing in 55 events. The competitors are high school students, college students, club rowers, national and Olympic team rowers (from around the world) and masters rowers.

In addition to the Stanford teams, the local area was represented by Norcal Crew, which had two boys' teams compete in the Youth 4 (high school) and Youth 8 events.

The Youth 4 finished in fourth place in a time of 17:18.416 in a field of 85. The first-place time was 16:40.153. The NorCal team included Jesse Rhoades (Crystal Springs), Patrick Winnet (Burlingame High), Alec Fishman (Palo Alto High) and James Hindery-Nelson (Palo Alto High). Miles Bowman (Aragon High) was the coxswain steering the boat. NorCal earned a medal and a guaranteed, seeded entry in next year's regatta.

The Youth 8 finished in 40th place in a time of 16:53.05 with another 85 boats competing. NorCal earned a guaranteed entry in next year's regatta by finishing in the top half. The rowers in the boat were: Misha Hindery-Nelson (Palo Alto High), Louis Barry (Palo Alto), Jaisel Sandhu (Palo Alto), Chris Skokowski (Palo Alto), Adam Marquardt (Sacred Heart Prep), Even Glessner (St. Francis), Will Carthart (Menlo-Atherton) and Marcus Burns (Palo Alto). Christian St. Claire (St. Francis) was the coxswain.

Allison Frykman coaches the NorCal varsity men.

In other action, Michael Hindery of Palo Alto finished second in the Senior Masters (50+) double in a time of 18:06.927, missing first place by 1.92 seconds.

— Palo Alto Online Sports

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