MIT had a long-standing reciprocal training agreement with Dartmouth College. Dartmouth trained out of our boathouse during spring break because, most years, the Connecticut River at Hanover was still frozen solid in April.  Then, after final exams, the MIT Heavyweights would train at Dartmouth in preparation for the IRA, their championship race held each year in mid-June.  The motor and sail boat traffic during the summer made training on the Charles River all but impossible. In addition, the weather was usually a bit cooler in New Hampshire.

In 1962, the Lightweights joined the Heavies in Hanover for our pre-Henley training. We remained there for two full weeks. Dartmouth has a beautiful campus, and Hanover is a great college town. It would be hard to imagine a better place to train.

The intensity of the training was such that it made our regular season training seem mild by comparison.  The regimen included three workouts a day. We would do calisthenics and run the stairs of the Dartmouth stadium—a real killer!—at 6:00am, have breakfast, have a morning workout on the river, have lunch and sleep for a couple of hours, have a late afternoon workout on the river, followed by dinner. Getting a good night's sleep was never a problem after days like that!

The improvements in both strength and efficiency were pronounced. By the end of the second week, the oarsmen were rowing so well together that they could practically row with their eyes closed. (I never tried that part of the routine myself!) Further, since there are no weight limits at Henley, making weight was no longer an issue. Given the prodigious amount of food that was being consumed, it was a wonder that the crew gained only five pounds per man. However, given the intensity of the workouts, you could be quite certain that this was five pounds of pure muscle.

Gary gave us Sunday off at the end of the first week, a time to rest over-worked muscles. Dennis Buss, a Vermont native, had worked summers for several years as an engineer on the Mt. Washington, NH, cog railroad, a job he would return to again after Henley. He encouraged us to drive over to see this unique railroad for ourselves. After arriving we decided to walk about a third of the way up the mountain along the path of the cog...

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...but given our competitive nature, it shouldn't have been a surprise that the walk up the mountain soon turned into a race. When we got back to Hanover, one of us made the mistake of telling Gary how we had spent our day of rest.  He was not amused.

One of the workout sessions during the last week was set aside for photographs. Normally, we were a pretty shabby bunch, but on this day we were in our full race-day dress. Here we are on the Dartmouth dock—the same nine that would compete at Henley. Bow to stern, we are Roger Rowe '62, Steve Richards '64, George Zimmerman '62, Herb Herrmann '64, Jerry Manning '62, Dennis Buss '63, Charles Bruggemann '62, Mark Barron '64, and Bob Vernon '63.

A few minutes later, my camera went with me on board, for this:

Finally, back to Cambridge for a final few days of training and preparation for the trip.  Gary arranged a scrimmage with one of the local club crews, but the hardest of our training days were behind us.

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A final training meal—at 29 Newbury, for those familiar with Boston—then off to Logan Airport for the overnight flight to London. This picture makes me wonder what the dress code would be today for such a flight.