Several issues arose as Wednesday, July 4, the first day of the Regatta, drew near. Rowing coaches are quite accustomed to having the flexibility of riding in a motor launch during practice so that they can observe the oarsmen, offer advice, make manpower changes when necessary—in other words, coaching. At Henley, coaches do not have that option.  Gary was relegated to riding a bicycle along the path that parallels the course, megaphone in hand, while trying to communicate with the crew. On several occasions we thought that he was going to end up in the drink! And, as clearly illustrated by the cyclists in this picture, the path was anything but straight:

The second issue was that as the days progressed toward the Regatta, the river was growing more and more crowded. It was becoming literally impossible to row for long stretches without interfering with other crews, or being interfered with. We were used to hard workouts every day and were concerned that we would lose our training edge.

Gary solved both issues by hiring a motor launch, taking the crew through the first locks on the Thames that were upstream from Henley. This was an interesting exercise in itself because as you can see the locks are quite narrow, much narrower than a crew shell with its oars deployed.

At last, though, we had the river practically to ourselves. This outing did wonders in terms of restoring confidence.

I was also concerned that the crew was beginning to feel a great deal of tension as race day approached. I know, for sure, that I was feeling the pressure. To lighten spirits, we decided to pull a gag on Gary with a game of Musical Chairs. (This term was used frequently early in the season when Gary wanted to change the personnel in the Varsity Eight. He would pull the launch up to the Junior Varsity boat—our second eight—bring a JV oarsman on-board, and then head over to the Varsity. Eight seats; nine oarsmen. Someone in the Varsity was about to lose his seat—Musical Chairs.)

So here we were, two days before the Regatta was to begin, headed toward the start of the course to take our final time trial. Gary was trapped over on the bike path about 100 feet away. To his astonishment, we decided to switch every seat in the boat; in other words, reverse the order. (I think I may have been the troublemaker who came up with this stunt, but I can't remember for sure. I'd love to hand the credit over to someone else.)

Gary did not seem to be at all amused, although he was probably laughing to himself, along with the rest of us. We rowed with this odd combination until we were well hidden behind Temple Island. When we turned the corner and reappeared at the starting line, everything, magically, was back to normal. Such were the pranks of a bunch of college kids back in 1962.

The following day, with the Regatta just one day away, we once again became dead serious about the task ahead. In my opinion, our crew never looked or felt better.