Sport: Rule Britannia

As the racing shells glided to the starting line on the Thames last week, the Cambridge coxswain alerted his crew with the traditional British command: "Come forward . . . Are you ready . . . Paddle!" From the Oxford shell sounded a crisp "Okay, gang, let's go!" For the first time in its 97 years of racing Cambridge, the Oxford crew had a U.S. cox: spectacled, 21-year-old George Alexander Carver (Yale '50).

Coxswain Carver's gang tried hard. But they didn't go very far. The favored Cambridge crew skimmed off to a six-length lead in the first half-mile of the horseshoe-shaped 4¼-mile course. The heavier Oxford shell, fighting the choppy, flooded stream, began shipping water from the start, soon swamped and gurgled to a stop.

The spectacle of "Admiral" Carver, adrift in the Thames, was almost too much for the British, whose sensitivity on the subject of U.S. admirals, even in a racing shell, had been recently heightened by the appointment of a U.S. officer to command NATO's sea forces. As Carver was hauled dripping to the shore, the crowd burst into a tumult of delighted ribbing.

Because the rules make the race no contest if one shell fails to finish the first mile, Admiral Carver's Oxford shell and Cambridge raced again* this week. It was official this time, but still no contest. Cambridge won by 15 lengths.