The first time that Jim Dietz rowed in the Head of the Charles was in 1965, which happened to be the first time the regatta was held. He was a high school kid who came up from the Bronx in a 1956 Chevy Bel Air, bunked in a dorm at Harvard Business School, paddled to the starting line, and finished second in the junior singles.

“The timing system was a 12-inch Seth Thomas clock mounted on three-quarter-inch ply,” he recalled. “Now they use microchips.”