Three Cornell rowing crews hit the water amidst wintry conditions on Sunday at the 45th annual Head of Charles Regatta in Boston. The Red posted impressive results at what has become the largest two-day rowing event in the world, including top-5 finishes by both the women’s crew in the Championship Fours and the men’s lightweight crew in the Lightweight Eights. The men’s heavyweight team finished 19th overall in the Championship Eights.

The women’s rowing team sent just one crew to the regatta this weekend, yet still made the most of its trip to Boston. The Red made its presence known as it raced to a third-place finish in a Championship Fours event that featured 19 crews. The Red’s time of 19:17.209 was good enough for second-best among collegiate participants. The Old Glory Boat Club won the event with a time of 18:14.587.All the world’s a stage: Three crew teams competed at the Head of the Charles Regatta in Boston on Sunday. The women’s crew in Championship Fours and the men’s lightweight squad both earned top-5 finishes amongst a strong field.

“The goal was for a top-5 finish,” said Hilary Gehman, the Staley Head Coach of Women’s Rowing. “To come in third overall was definitely a good performance.”

Despite this, Gehman insisted upon looking forward to more important races in the future.

“This race is not the race to look at for the season. We’re ultimately looking at our spring season to determine our speed against the competition,” Gehman said. “[The Head of Charles Regatta] is definitely important in respect to momentum, but not necessarily in determining how we’ll do in the spring.”

Senior Caroline Post stressed the importance of this momentum as the team prepares for its next big test at the Princeton Chase this upcoming weekend.

“We came in first at [the Quadricentennial Poughkeepsie Regatta] and we got third at the Charles. The combination of the two really gives us a nice step forward heading into Princeton,” said Post, who was a member of the crew that finished third over the weekend.

The men’s rowing teams will also be looking to build off their solid performances this past weekend as they prepare for the Princeton Chase.

The lightweight men’s crew placed fifth out of 21 competitors with an impressive time of 15:52.190 on Sunday. The New York Athletic Club won the race with a time of 15:28.295.

“The race went pretty much as expected,” said junior coxswain Kerry Quinn. “The result is pretty consistent with where we’ve been in the past.”

The Red lightweight eights have finished sixth or better at the Charles Regatta for the past three years now, including two consecutive fifth-place finishes.

Quinn hopes that the fifth-place finish this year may help propel the lightweight rowers to an even better finish in Princeton.

“[The Charles Regatta] was definitely a big step for this upcoming weekend and for the rest of the year,” Quinn said. “We are in the mix and we believe we have [something to accomplish] this season.”

The men’s heavyweight crew didn’t fare quite as well as its lightweight counterparts in the Championship Eights event, but still finished a respectable 19th out of 37 competitors with a time of 15:29.353. The Tideway Scullers School, located out of London, won the event with a time of 14.33.239.

The men’s heavyweight team will be accompanying the men’s lightweight team and women’s team at the Princeton Chase this weekend. Unlike the Charles Regatta, the Red rowing teams will be bringing their full roster of players to the race in New Jersey.

Hopefully the weather will be more reasonable for the race in Princeton; the Red battled strong winds and snow in Boston on Sunday.

“The wind always affects rowing because you have to fight against it,” Post said. “The snow was just added excitement.”

Gehman downplayed Mother Nature’s impact on the race, however, claiming that it posed more of a threat to her and the other spectators watching from the shore than it did to the athletes rowing down the Charles River.

“[The rowers] get warmed up, they get in the zone. I don’t think it affected them at all,” Gehman said.

Nonetheless, Quinn and his lightweight crew took some precautions to make sure that the weather wouldn’t be a factor.

“We did a really quick warm-up,” Quinn said. “We tried to do everything we could to keep the guys dry and warm as long as possible.”

In the end, though, Quinn agreed with Gehman that the weather’s influence on the races’ final results were minimal.

“Once you’re on the water, everybody’s affected just the same,” he said.