Row360's Head of the Charles coverage brought to you by SparksA cold front arrived in Boston overnight. After the rain and unseasonable warmth earlier in the week, Saturday at the 2026 Head of the Charles brought grey skies and stiff, chilly winds, but no rain. The middle day of the regatta offered a full programme in its own right: the opening event, the men's club singles, went off at 7:45am, and racing ran through the afternoon to the mixed and para-inclusion events after 4pm. In between came the first championship titles of the weekend, a fiercely contested set of alumni eights and a hardy contingent of masters and club competitors.
Melvin on home soil
Sam Melvin came to Boston nearly seven weeks after finishing fourth in the men's single at the World Rowing Championships in Amsterdam, where he challenged the eventual bronze medallist through the closing stages. On the Charles he beat defending champion Finn Hamill of New Zealand to win the men's championship single.
With defending champion and Dutch Olympic gold medallist Karolien Florijn absent from the 20-strong women's championship single field, Grace Joyce of California Rowing Club stepped up to claim the title. She won by six seconds from Kristi Wagner of Boston Rowing Federation. Joyce finished fourth in this event in 2025, won silver in the single at World Rowing Cup II in Plovdiv this season, and raced in the US women's quad at the Paris Olympics.
In the championship doubles, Kevin Cardno of Penn AC and Jamie Copus won the men's race. Copus won a World Championships bronze medal in the lightweight double in Amsterdam. ARION's Goodness and Brija won the women's double.
Alumni eights
Brown University won the men's title for the second consecutive year, ahead of Washington, with Princeton’s Fat Cat crew four seconds further back in third place. Durham University's 1877 entry finished seventh.
The women's race was billed as a contest between Washington and the Crabtree Boat Club combination of former University of Cambridge oarswomen. Washington won convincingly despite it being their first time together in this line up.
Four members of Washington's winning alumnae crew will race again in Sunday's women's championship eights: Jessica Thoennes and cox Cristina Castagna in the US national-team entry racing as USRowing Training Centre (USTC) Princeton, and Teal Cohen and Holly Drapp in the US national-team entry racing as USTC Boston.
Masters and club
Shannon Kaplan of Penn AC took her 13th consecutive Head of the Charles title, winning the women's 40+ single. Racing in a combined field with the 30+ scullers, she also recorded a faster time than their winner, Katherine McFetridge. They started consecutively, McFetridge with bow number one and Kaplan with bow number two.
Marlow Rowing Club won the women's 50+ eights with a crew of former Olympians from Canada and Great Britain, coxed by Lesley Thompson-Willie.
In the men's 60+ fours, the Crabtree crew of Cambridge University alumni, carrying bow number four, started second because the first two crews were late, caught bow number three at Riverside, then reached the back of the preceding 50+ fours field.
Rachel Grainger won a medal in Saturday's women's club single for Vesta. Her mother Anne, who sculled for the US at the 1988 and 1992 Olympics, won the women's 60+ single for Wallingford. The pair race together in Sunday's parent-child event.
Sunday
The championship eights race on Sunday, with the women at 2:43pm and the men at 3:20pm. In the women's race, the two US national-team crews meet: one built around the World Championships bronze-medal eight, the other containing the world champion four. Oxford, Cambridge, Molesey, Yale, Princeton, Radcliffe, Brown and BU are also entered, and Oxford have Paris bronze medallist Hattie Taylor back after two years away from rowing.
In the men's race, Cambridge start with bow number one and go for a third consecutive title under Rob Baker, who helped coach the world champion Holland Acht this summer. The Dutch arrive with a changed line-up. Oxford have Italian international Gennaro Di Mauro on board, and Washington, Harvard, Brown, Dartmouth and Princeton are all entered, along with a US national-team crew and eight of the nine from New Zealand's Tokyo gold medal-winning eight.
