MIT Boathouses

As might be expected with any sport requiring an extensive layout of building and equipment, it has to start, like newly married couple, in rented or temporary quarters. When there were available a sufficient number of interested undergraduates with some rowing experience at universities from which they moves on to M.I.T., the Tech campus was not even close to water but assembled at a group of buildings on Boylston Street in the Back Bay section of Boston on land previously reclaimed from the tidal Charles River of Back Bay. Fortunately there were, besides these interested students, influential alumni, and ex-oarsmen from rowing colleges on the Charles River and in Boston Harbor, not to overlook faculty and Presidents of M.I.T. who had rowed in their undergraduate days in England and the U.S., that gave them support and status. The nearest boathouse to the campus was the Union Boat Club with a rowing facility close by the Boston end of the West Boston or Longfellow Bridge. The tidal situation was about to be terminated by a dam and causeway below that bridge which would make the Charles River float water with a large basin extending inland two miles or more and above that a deepened river all the way to Watertown, a great boon and incentive to any rowing activity.

Little time was lost with all this support to make arrangements with Union Boat Club to use their facilities and equipment to supplement a nucleus of owned equipment provided by money raised and donated by the Alumni. Thus in 1902? Tech oarsmen were added to crews making their way up and down the Charles, mainly college and schoolboy crews in the spring and fall with summer rowing provided mainly college and schoolboy crews in the spring and fall with summer rowing provided mainly by the various clubs. As Tech students came and went with entering and graduating classes the availability went through cycles that affected the amount and type of rowing. Until 1912 there were men enough to provide crews for eights, but in 1913 to 1915 the emphasis was on fours racing under the banners of their respective classes. With the pending opening of the new M.I.T. campus on the oarsmen were in an uncertain position where the student body would be divided by a river and resulting scheduling problems.

The move of M.I.T. across the river became official at the close Commencement exercises in June 1916, when the M.I.T. Seal was rowed across the Charles in the elaborately decorated "Bucanteur", a replica of a Venetian State Barge. It would be sentimentally symbolic if it were known if the rowing was on the river on April. It was a busy racing season with a number of inter-class and inter-college competitions in the spring and Field Day races in the fall and Tech crew was off and rowing. To emphasize this the M.I.T. Boat Club was abolished, probably to get away from the "club" implication and the Technology Rowing Association formed.

As the BAA Boat House was not equipped or intended for winter operations, rowing machines were installed in the Walker Memorial Gym on the new campus and training continued and plans made for an expanded spring activity. But with the United States entering World War I all sports and other student activities had to adapt to new wartime atmosphere and rowing continued mainly for practice, exercise and informal class competition. The physical plant of the boathouse was improved for the increased use when it was purchased in 19-- by the Institute crew became an official sport.

At the time of Tech usage of the B.A.A. Boathouse it was a typical club building of the times. A two story structure of wood, accessible directly from street level to the second floor due to the embankment close to the shore line into which it was built with personnel facilities on the second floor and shell racks on the first. With three bays and large doorways to the ramp a dozen or shells could be accommodated depending on their types from singles to eights, and space necessary for repair benches and other supporting activities. The ramp was full width of the building, to which was connected a float of the same width that would accommodate a single eight at one time.

Any rowing site is sure to have disadvantages of some sort. At Union the buildup of waves at fort of the basin could make boating from their float impossible with any wind or power boat traffic that started waves rebounding back and forth between the granite walls on either side of the river basin. At the BAA boathouse the bridges above and below were a frustrating hazard and nuisance, especially the downstream St. Mary's Street palisade of piles that were too close together to act as a barrier to waves from downs stream. With all the crews and coaching launches from upstream, mostly from Harvard, coming through these bridges to get to the basin, the traffic congestion was horrendous, especially when Harvard was entertaining visiting crews for regattas. The customary technique for a shell was for the cox to get lined up with the one opening wide enough for a row through and try to stay centered until entering the span and be ready to "easy all" and instruct either port or starboard oars to be down in to miss the piles. A cross wind or bouncing launch waves only added to the problems. With the worst conditions at the St. Mary's bridge obstacle, whatever happened at the Cottage Farm maze was of less concern though potentially just as damaging to pride and property.

On the second floor was the club room with its large imposing fireplace to adapt to the atmosphere of club rowing, an alcove to the easterly side of the fireplace for more chummy gatherings and the entrance and stairway to the lower level on the opposite side. The westerly quarter of the second floor was allotted to locker and shower space. To the front or water end and the easterly side corresponding to the locker and shower space interior though originally open for enjoyment of the breezes viewing of the water activities and social activities.

In the early concept of a boathouse where social activities took precedence, these latter spaces were for non-rowing guests. But for a more serious college rowing activity they had been taken over by rowing machines. On the main clubroom floor were two sets of eight machines of early vintage, with conventional sliding seats and a stub oar attached to a friction arrangement of leather strap around a steel drum. It may have had merit when invented but compared to newer hydraulic devices added on the porches the strap machines were avoided by all if in any way possible. After the Tech occupancy in 19--- there were two sets of eight hydraulic machines on the front porch and one on the east side so that with crew after crew taking their places on schedule a lot of oarsmen could be accommodated. But both types of machines had a dreaded attachment, a wing nut on the strap machines and a wrench on the hydraulics by which a coach could continually offset the effect of strap or oil warming up and lessening the load. Coaches are pretty good at judging whether an oarsman is really working hard or faking it just a little and over adjust accordingly. There was not much gained for blade work on these machines but they did work up a sweat.

At the time Tech took over the BAA Boathouse, the Charles River was getting some needed attention to continue the improvement made by conversion from tidal to constant level. Bridges above and below the boathouse, the Cottage Farm above and the St. Mary's Street below, were built of wood piles with draws for passage of commercial traffic. The Cottage Farm was further complicated by having both a traffic and a railroad bridge, each at a different angle to the shoreline with no coordination of piling location to provide a clean passage. The St. Mary's bridge was removed in 1926-27 and the Cottage Farm rebuilt soon after, which was eventually a boon for rowing though traumatic while it was in progress.

Once the BAA Boathouse had been purchased, the float for launching one shell at a time replaced by a non-floating dock with wings to accommodate five shells, a boiler installed for heating for all year usage and hot water for showers, additional bays to provide racks for more shells and space for repairs and maintenance of equipment, additional rowing machines for training and exercise and permanent staff of to carry out an aggressive rowing program an air of permanence existed. Yet there was always that nagging thought that the proper place for a boathouse was close by Walker Memorial, the headquarters of student affairs and the gymnasium, first envisioned by Pres. Maclauren. Offsetting this was the recognition of frequent unfavorable water conditions in that part of the basin and the difficulties imposed by the bureaucracy of the Metropolitan District Commission which had jurisdiction over the Charles River even though the more amenable Cambridge authorities controlled the land.

A further complication after acquisition of the BAA boathouse was the rebuilding of the ramp and float arrangement of the Tech boathouse and the addition of a bay on either side of the original building. As the river had become of constant level controlled by the spillway at the dam, lock and causeway at the tide level and it was rebuilt on piles for a constant level. With a one shell front face and wings angling outward from either end so that five shells could be docked at a time; a real bottleneck in the launching or retrieving process was eliminated. But all of this reconstruction created floating debris in the water regardless of any rules or care for prevention of this hazard. The shells of the time were of delicate 3/16" cedar without the protection of the later to be developed fiberglass cloth and resin to prevent leakage from fine checks and cracks. A crack could be started from a relatively minor blow by a piece of floating debris and run from there to a rib or beyond, aided and abetted by the normal strains of rowing. While much of the spring and fall rowing, for college rowing the most practical time found to be conducted was in the afternoon day light hours. At Tech rowing was mainly after the termination of classes at 5:00 PM when it was dusk or dark and there was no way for a coxswain behind a crew or a coach behind a shell to see a piece of debris barely floating at water level directly ahead.

The inevitable solution to this problem was to row in the morning when there was at least daylight for early morning foggy eyes. This was bad enough for those in dormitories or nearby fraternity or boarding houses but a worse situation on the commuting students, and for all some kind of adjustment to a possible breakfast time. Some crews found solutions to the problems of time so that a crew would get on the river and return before dark rather than suffer morning rowing problems, but there was limited opportunity for this chance benefit.

But eventually the various projects were complicated, leaving the boathouse with an unobstructed view of the head of the basin. With the St. Mary's Street bridge in place crews on the staring line had to snuggle up against the bridge in order to get a mile and three quarters distance before the cox had to call for a solid "hold all" in the V formed by the wall at the Union Boathouse and Longfellow Bridge, but going with the bridge eliminated a 2 mile course was easily provided. Upstream from the Tech boathouse, there was room under the Cottage Farm and railroad for crews and launches to pass in relative safety and without delay by following one-at-a-time priority.