A Tale of Two Heads: SWHOP and SHOP Recap
The nor'easter everyone was watching all week swung out to sea, and the Potomac gave us two days of racing. It was cold and rainy, but nobody lost a regatta to the weather. Here's how the weekend played out.
Two regattas, one river
Saturday brought the Sweepers Head of the Potomac (SWHOP), the upstart race TBCRacing launched as an alternative to the traditional fall head race. Sunday was the Scullers Head of the Potomac (SHOP), the original, hosted by Potomac Boat Club.
The entry lists tell you where things are headed. SHOP drew 19 boys' eights, 17 girls' eights and 12 boys' fours. SWHOP's boys' events had 14 eights, and the girls' events had 9. Plus if we're being honest, more than 50% of entries at SWHOP were from the hosting team.
Most teams have made their way back to the official regatta, but SWHOP still produced some of the weekend's tightest racing.
SWHOP (Saturday, 4,400m)
Boys eights. Jackson-Reed took the Men's Varsity 8+ in 13:24.8, just 6.7 seconds ahead of TBCRacing. Resilient, Prince William and Annapolis Juniors followed, only 7 seconds apart from third to fifth. Jackson-Reed also won the JV 8+, with their A boat finishing 9.8 seconds ahead of TBCRacing's.
Girls eights. TBCRacing swept the Women's Varsity 8+, with their A boat winning in 15:05.6. The race of the day was for second: TBCRacing's B boat held off Old Dominion by four-tenths of a second, 15:46.5 to 15:46.9. In the Women's JV 8+, TBCRacing's C boat was fastest of their three JV crews and would have beaten Annapolis Juniors' varsity boat.
Boys fours. In the Men's Varsity 4+, Jackson-Reed's B boat won in 15:12.8, a full 31 seconds ahead of their A boat. Prince William, Resilient and TBCRacing were separated by just 7.4 seconds behind them.
SHOP (Sunday, 4,500m)
Boys eights. Whitman's 1V8 was the story of the weekend, winning the Men's Junior Eight in 13:43.9, 44.7 seconds ahead of Jackson-Reed. Walter Johnson was third and Prince William fourth. Whitman's 2V8 placed fifth overall, ahead of every other team's first boat except the top three. Two crews, Maverick's B boat and St. Johns' B boat, picked up 30-second penalties.
Girls eights. Whitman won here too, in 15:33.3, 35.3 seconds ahead of Jackson-Reed's A boat. Old Dominion was third. Jackson-Reed's B boat and B-CC, fourth and fifth, finished 1.3 seconds apart.
According to unconfirmed reports, the Whitman 3V8 and Jackson-Reed 4V8 may have collided hard enough to damage a boat. The results fit that story: Jackson-Reed's 4V8 finished more than four minutes behind their 3V8. We hope everyone is okay and the equipment can be repaired.
Boys fours. The Men's Junior Four-with was the closest race of the weekend. B-CC won in 16:22.2, just one second ahead of Prince William, with Jackson-Reed and St. Johns right behind. The top four were separated by 8.9 seconds over 4,500 meters. B-CC's second four was fifth, ahead of every other team's second boat.
Fall 2026 Head Race Rankings
We've launched the Fall 2026 Head Race Rankings, which rate every boys' and girls' eight and boys' four in the region from their head race results. The approach is modeled on row2k's cMax college rankings. Every crew is compared through the boats they've raced, even if they've never met directly, and ranked by how many seconds they'd finish behind the top crew over a standard 5,000-meter race. The rankings also account for course conditions, count recent races more heavily, and let you pick any two crews for a predicted head-to-head margin.
We'll update the rankings after every regatta this fall. They'll sharpen as crews race more often and meet more opponents. See everyone at the next one.
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