The 51st Head of the Charles Regatta was held in Boston over the weekend, and with more than 2,000 boats and 10,000 rowers, it is one of the world’s largest rowing competitions.

A cool Saturday with strong winds morphed into the first taste of winter with near-freezing temperatures on Sunday, when all three of Vashon’s crews competed. Nonetheless, it was a beautiful day with the eddies along the riverbanks decorated with yellow, orange and red foliage from the trees lining the course in full fall glory.

The junior women’s eight (Riley Lynch, Rhea Enzian, Virginia Miller, Katrina Heffernan, Caprial Turner, Maddie McEachern, Emma Greenlee, Emily Milbrath and Ally Clevenger, coxswain) placed in the top 10 in last year’s regatta and was invited to return. Although this year’s place (30th out of 85) was not quite as high, it was good enough to secure them an invitation back to next year’s regatta.

Most of the events at this regatta are by invitation or lottery, and this year Vashon did not secure any lottery picks. However, there are a few races, called Director’s Challenges, that are first come, pay-in events. Vashon entered master women’s and junior men’s quads in two of these races. These events include a wide range of talent and age, everything from world champions to 70-year-old veterans.  Both of the Vashon crews finished in the middle of field in Sunday’s races with the women’s quad (Kim Goforth, Su Dewalt, Mary Rothermel and Marilyn Kleyn) placing 18th out of 34 entries. The junior men (Patrick Hanson, Fletcher Call, David Nguyen and Forrest Miller) finished 21st out of 40 after incurring penalty time when passing another boat early in the race and being forced off the course to avoid a collision. Without their penalty, they would have placed 12th.

Coach Richard Parr was proud of each of the teams that made the trek to Boston.

“This regatta is one of the premier rowing events on the annual world calendar. To compete is an honor, and our boats acquitted themselves very well against world class competition,” he said.

In addition to Vashon’s current rowers,the island was represented by six recent alumni of the junior program: Kirsten Girard (University of Tennessee), Taegan Lynch (University of Miami), Jacob Plihal (Northeastern University), Tate Gill (Boston University), Leanne Anderson (Fairfield University) and Mia Croonquist (University of California, Berkeley). All of the alumni boats finished well, but Croonquist and her Cal teammates had a spectacular row in the Women’s Championship eights race. Starting in next to last position out of 33 entries, they passed eight other boats and finished with the winning time by 25 seconds. In contrast the Men’s Championship eight race had the top four boats separated by less than eight seconds.

Meanwhile near Tacoma, assistant coach Tom Kicinski and the rest of the junior program and some masters rowers journeyed to the annual 5K American Lake Fall Regatta where the club won nine gold medals, four silvers and one bronze in 20 races entered. Both the novice junior men and women won their eight, four and quad races. Mary Shemeta and her daughter, Rhiannon Simmons, won their respective singles races.  And Mei Lei Vandervelde and Tabitha Illerbrunn won in the junior women’s double category. Master Fred Sayer competing in his first singles head race finished with a silver medal.

It was another strong showing for the Vashon crews with the success of the novice rowers pointing to the future prospects for the program.

— Pat Call is the father of a junior rower.