About this site
Methods
How the charts are built, what they show, and what they leave out, with the figures behind each claim. Figures are recomputed from the site’s own data whenever it is rebuilt (last: 2026-10-24).
The data
Every published Head of the Charles result in RegattaCentral from 2012 through 2026: 14 editions (the 2020 regatta was canceled), 953 divisions and 32,985 result rows. RegattaCentral, “Head of the Charles Regatta Results”, archived copy. Each edition’s published results page, with times at Riverside, Weld, and Cambridge Boat Club. Each row keeps the bow number, club, and boat label, cumulative times at Riverside, Weld, and Cambridge Boat Club, the finish place, and the official and rowed times.
- Events across years. Divisions are grouped by RegattaCentral event code. Minor spacing variants are merged (
W SR-VET1XandW SR-VET 1X)—materially different codes are not. HOCR has renamed and regrouped categories over time, so the Race view keeps each year’s own division names. - 2012. RegattaCentral’s 2012 results carry shifted and duplicated event descriptions. Every 2012 field was re-identified from winning-time ranges, club overlap with 2013–2014, and schedule order—the published file is kept unchanged and corrected at load time. This site, “2012 event corrections” (applied at load time). Each re-identified 2012 field, with the evidence behind it.
- Excluded. RegattaCentral still contains a second 2016 listing created for testing. It is a leftover setup record, not a second running of the Head of the Charles, so this archive omits it and does not include it in any totals.
What is a bumps chart?
A bumps chart is a picture of an order over time. Each column is one edition of a race—a day of racing, or a year. Each crew holds a place in that order, with the head at the top, and a line joins its place from one column to the next. Anu Dudhia, “Oxford Bumps Charts,” Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics, University of Oxford, archived copy. Oxford crews’ places, drawn day by day and year by year. The chart doesn’t draw times or margins. It draws who is ahead of whom, and for how long. Cambridge University Combined Boat Clubs, “How the Bumps Work,” CUCBC, archived copy. The page describes multi-year “charts of racing progress.”
Two kinds of order can fill a column: the start order, the sequence crews set off in, and the headship, the finishing order an edition produces, topped by its Head of the River. Oxford University Sport, “Rowing,” University of Oxford, archived copy. The top crew is Head of the River, and places carry over from earlier results. What makes the chart possible is that the order carries over. In bumps racing, each day’s finishing order becomes the next day’s start order, Anu Dudhia, “A History of Oxford College Rowing” (2000; updated 2010), archived copy. Each day’s finishing order is the next day’s start order. and the last day’s order sets the start for the following year. A head race runs once a year, and its results seed the next year’s start order. Head of the Charles Regatta, “Rules & Guidelines,” rule 3.11, archived copy. Returning singles and doubles start ahead of newcomers, seeded by their final times.
Bumps charts have a strong claim to being rowing’s oldest homegrown data visualization, and their finest examples aren’t printed at all. At Oxford and Cambridge, the day’s results go up in chalk inside the colleges, turning a centuries-old quad into a scoreboard for the term’s racing. Tim Koch, “Bumps to the Head: The 2014 Oxford Summer Eights. Part 2 – An Oriel Picture Diary,” Hear The Boat Sing, June 10, 2014, archived copy. An approved chalk lasts about ten years, and a chalkboard by Oriel’s Porters’ Lodge shows each day’s progress. The chart turns a rule peculiar to the sport—the order carries from one race to the next—into a picture you can read at a glance. The records behind Oxford’s charts reach back to 1815, and were gathered into print by 1873. By 1900, The Times was publishing bumps charts every year: lines of chalk on college walls had become something readers could clip and keep. Dudhia, “Oxford Bumps Charts”. Dudhia cites C. C. Knollys, Oxford University Boat Races (1873), for 1815–1824, and W. E. Sherwood, Oxford Rowing (1900), for the rest of the century. Charts printed in The Times, 1900–1995.
Bumps racing
Bumps racing grew up on rivers too narrow to race side by side, the Isis at Oxford and the Cam at Cambridge. Crews start in single file, about a length and a half apart, and chase the boat ahead. Catch it and you’ve made a bump: both crews pull over, and the next day they swap places. No clock is needed—a bump settles the result, which suited a racing format that began long before anyone could time dozens of crews over a course. Get through the course without catching anyone or being caught and you’ve rowed over. Cambridge University Combined Boat Clubs, “Lent and May Races,” CUCBC Handbook, rules 46–48, archived copy. A bump by contact, overlap, or concession, with the boats exchanging places the next day. After four days, the final order becomes next year’s starting order. Dudhia, “Oxford College Rowing”. Crews start 130 feet apart, about a length and a half. The 1840 rules defined a bump as “the touching of any part, whether it be boat, oars, or rudder.” Eights Week has run over four days since the mid-1950s. On a chart of bumps racing, every change in the order records a bump made on the water.
Head racing
A head race is a time trial. Crews start one at a time, seconds apart, and each is timed from start to finish. Head of the Charles Regatta, “History”, archived copy. Boats start one after another, about fifteen seconds apart, and race the clock. The results rank crews by elapsed time. Head of the River Race, “About HoRR”, archived copy. A processional start at ten-second intervals, won by the fastest time. Crews do overtake—a crew that passes the boat ahead has beaten it on time as well HOCR, “Rules,” rule 12.8. A crew being passed must yield the line the passing crew chooses.—but most of the order is settled between crews that never draw level on the water.
Head racing grew out of bumps racing and kept most of its DNA. Steve Fairbairn had rowed in the Cambridge bumps for Jesus College. Jesus College Boat Club, “Fairbairn Cup History”, archived copy. When he started the Tideway’s Head of the River Race in 1926, he traded the bump for the stopwatch. HoRR, “About HoRR”. The first race in 1926, with earlier finishers starting in order. Crews no longer had to catch the boat ahead—they had to beat its time. Nearly everything else came across intact. Crews still set off in single file, the order still carries from one year to the next, and the crew at the top is still the Head of the River. The format crossed the Atlantic in 1965, when Ernest Arlett, Harvard’s English-born sculling instructor, proposed a “head of the river” race for the Charles. HOCR, “History”. Arlett’s proposal, the first race on October 16, 1965, and the title Head of the River for each race winner.
That inheritance is why a head race can be drawn as a bumps chart at all. Last year’s results seed this year’s start order, HOCR, “Rules,” rule 3.11. just as the last day of the bumps sets next year’s. Oxford University Sport, “Rowing”. Starting places come from the year before. The difference is in what a line segment holds. On a chart of bumps racing, each rise or fall marks a bump. On a chart of head racing, a rise or fall compares a crew’s finish with its finish the year before. Since last year’s finish sets this year’s start order, that’s in effect the crew’s seeding set against its result—one line segment for a whole race, not one event on the water.
Bumps across headships
A bump is one crew displacing another in the order: the crew that was behind is now ahead. In bumps racing, the displacement is settled on the water: the chasing crew catches the crew ahead, or the leading crew concedes when the catch is inevitable. Dudhia, “Oxford College Rowing”. A bump comes by contact, or by the cox of the crew ahead raising an arm to concede. The next day’s start order records the change. In head racing, the displacement is the bump. Crew A bumps crew B when B finished ahead of A in one headship and A finishes ahead of B in the next. RegattaCentral, “Head of the Charles Results”. Bumps are counted from the site’s linked results. Their lines cross on the chart because A has taken B’s place in the headship.
A head-race bump has no contact and no single moment. It spans two time trials a year apart and is settled when the second result is in. What carries over from the river is the record: one crew was behind another, and now it is ahead.
The count is strict. Both crews must race in both editions. This site, “Methods statistics” (computed at each rebuild). Counts use only crews linked in consecutive editions. A crew that finishes ahead of four crews that beat it the year before has made four bumps. Places that change only because crews entered or left the field are not bumps. Within a single race, a crew that gains places between checkpoints has changed rank, not bumped anyone.
The Bumps view
The Bumps view is a bumps chart of the Head of the Charles. It draws each crew’s place in each edition’s headship and joins the editions together.
The carry-over is nearly exact: returning crews start very close to last year’s finishing order. Comparing each edition’s bow order with the previous edition’s finish order for crews that raced both: This site, “Methods statistics”. The bowVsPriorFinish figures: a rank correlation for each pair of consecutive editions.
So for a returning crew, each segment is in effect its seeding set against its result. What the view hides:
- The race itself. Everything between the start and the finish line is in the Race view.
- First appearances. A club’s first recorded appearance in an event has no earlier point to join. After an event’s first recorded edition, 32% of entries come from clubs appearing in that event for the first time within this 2012–2026 archive. This site, “Methods statistics”. The
newcomersfigures. - Passing. Beating a crew on elapsed time isn’t the same as passing it on the river.
Clubs often enter more than one boat: 10% of club-years have two or more. This site, “Methods statistics”. The secondBoats figures. A club’s fastest boat each year forms its main line and its second-fastest forms a thinner second line, each labeled with the plain club name.
The Race view
The Race view shows one event in one year. Places gained draws every crew from its start position (bow order) HOCR, “Rules,” rule 5.6. Each boat carries its bow number card. through its rank at Riverside, Weld, and Cambridge Boat Club to its finish place. Section time and Section rank split the course into its four parts. RegattaCentral, “Head of the Charles Results”. Splits at Riverside, Weld, and Cambridge Boat Club.
The checkpoint ranks are on elapsed time, so these are changes in rank, not bumps: a crew can “gain” ten places without ever drawing level with another boat. That is also why most of the reshuffling shows up at the first checkpoint. Start position is a seeding—Riverside is the first ranking on time. This site, “Methods statistics”. The withinRace figures.
Largest gain on record: Reategui, C. (Lake Merritt), Men’s Grand Master/Veteran Singles, 2021: started 126th, finished 20th.
Clubs, crews, and rowers
Clubs
- Each club is matched to its RegattaCentral organization number where one exists (2,037 clubs). Names are combined only by exact mappings, never by fuzzy matching. This site, “Club registry”. Every mapping from a printed club name to an organization.
- When two organizations share a name (two Leanders, two London Rowing Clubs), each takes its RegattaCentral official name, and the chart adds a short qualifier: the country code when they are in different countries, otherwise the city. This site, “Club registry”.
- Composite crews (532) are kept as their own entries and list each member club with its RegattaCentral number.
- Unaffiliated scullers are not a club. They never count as a leading club or towards club statistics.
Singles and doubles
- Singles are called by name. In single-sculls events the lines follow the rower, labeled “Surname, F.”.
- Doubles are called by club. The line still follows the same crew from year to year, matched by its rower of record (the name RegattaCentral prints for the boat), but it is labeled with the crew’s club.
- A rower is the same person across events and clubs when the surname and first initial match within the same gender. Mixed and Directors’ Challenge events are not linked. This site, “Methods statistics”. Two different people with the same surname and initial are merged by this rule.
What’s highlighted first
Each event opens with its three leading clubs, crews, or rowers in color, along with at least one showcase crew.
- Leading clubs: most medal finishes in the event’s history HOCR, “Rules,” rule 4.3. Medals depend on entries: a second-place medal from 10 entries, third from 20, fourth from 30, and fifth from 40.—ties go to more wins, then more editions, then the better median field position.
- Showcase crew: never one of the three leaders, Unaffiliated, or a composite. Among the rest it prefers a crew that raced the latest edition, then the most editions, then the longest unbroken run, so its line reaches the right-hand edge. A few are chosen by hand: North Dakota Indoor Rowing Team in the men’s Grand Master doubles and eights, and Fellows, M. in the women’s Championship singles. This site, “Showcase overrides”. A few events add a second showcase crew chosen by hand, often for the name: Billy and Ian’s Homemade Hot Sauce RC and Blue Cheese RC in Men’s Alumni Eights, for example.
- The showcase crew isn’t saved in the page address and doesn’t follow you to another event. Crews you pick do.
Times, handicaps, and penalties
Results are ranked on official time. Where it differs from the time rowed, there are two causes:
- Handicaps are age adjustments. Nearly all are in Directors’ Challenge events (about 1,740) and Alumni eights and fours (about 200), with a handful elsewhere. Marked † on the pace chart.
- Penalties come in multiples of 5 seconds. HOCR, “Rules,” rules 11.6, 12.4, 12.5, and 12.8. Penalties of 5, 10, 30, 60, and 120 seconds. Marked ‡.
- Pace on club pages is the percentage behind the winner,
(official time − winning time) / winning time, always within one race and year. Raw times are never compared across editions because the course and conditions change. - Field position is place ÷ finishers, shown as “top X%”.
Limits
- No on-water passes yet. Who physically passed whom depends on the interval between starts, which isn’t in the published results. RegattaCentral, “Head of the Charles Results”. Every “gain” on this site is a change of rank on elapsed time.
- No lineups. Rowers are identified only in singles and doubles, from the boat label. Crews of four and eight are identified by club.
- Name rules are mechanical. Same surname and initial means the same rower, and organization numbers decide which clubs are the same. Corrections are welcome.
Notes
Notes follow Chicago style. Each outside source links to the live page and to an archived copy. The framing, the definition of a bump across headships, and every figure are this site’s own. Anu Dudhia’s Oxford bumps charts are the design reference—no code or images are reused.
- RegattaCentral, “Head of the Charles Regatta Results”, archived copy. Each edition’s published results page, with times at Riverside, Weld, and Cambridge Boat Club. ↩
- This site, “2012 event corrections” (applied at load time). Each re-identified 2012 field, with the evidence behind it. ↩
- Anu Dudhia, “Oxford Bumps Charts,” Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics, University of Oxford, archived copy. Oxford crews’ places, drawn day by day and year by year. ↩
- Cambridge University Combined Boat Clubs, “How the Bumps Work,” CUCBC, archived copy. The page describes multi-year “charts of racing progress.” ↩
- Oxford University Sport, “Rowing,” University of Oxford, archived copy. The top crew is Head of the River, and places carry over from earlier results. ↩
- Anu Dudhia, “A History of Oxford College Rowing” (2000; updated 2010), archived copy. Each day’s finishing order is the next day’s start order. ↩
- Head of the Charles Regatta, “Rules & Guidelines,” rule 3.11, archived copy. Returning singles and doubles start ahead of newcomers, seeded by their final times. ↩
- Tim Koch, “Bumps to the Head: The 2014 Oxford Summer Eights. Part 2 – An Oriel Picture Diary,” Hear The Boat Sing, June 10, 2014, archived copy. An approved chalk lasts about ten years, and a chalkboard by Oriel’s Porters’ Lodge shows each day’s progress. ↩
- Dudhia, “Oxford Bumps Charts”. Dudhia cites C. C. Knollys, Oxford University Boat Races (1873), for 1815–1824, and W. E. Sherwood, Oxford Rowing (1900), for the rest of the century. Charts printed in The Times, 1900–1995. ↩
- Cambridge University Combined Boat Clubs, “Lent and May Races,” CUCBC Handbook, rules 46–48, archived copy. A bump by contact, overlap, or concession, with the boats exchanging places the next day. ↩
- Dudhia, “Oxford College Rowing”. Crews start 130 feet apart, about a length and a half. The 1840 rules defined a bump as “the touching of any part, whether it be boat, oars, or rudder.” Eights Week has run over four days since the mid-1950s. ↩
- Head of the Charles Regatta, “History”, archived copy. Boats start one after another, about fifteen seconds apart, and race the clock. ↩
- Head of the River Race, “About HoRR”, archived copy. A processional start at ten-second intervals, won by the fastest time. ↩
- HOCR, “Rules,” rule 12.8. A crew being passed must yield the line the passing crew chooses. ↩
- Jesus College Boat Club, “Fairbairn Cup History”, archived copy. ↩
- HoRR, “About HoRR”. The first race in 1926, with earlier finishers starting in order. ↩
- HOCR, “History”. Arlett’s proposal, the first race on October 16, 1965, and the title Head of the River for each race winner. ↩
- HOCR, “Rules,” rule 3.11. ↩
- Oxford University Sport, “Rowing”. Starting places come from the year before. ↩
- Dudhia, “Oxford College Rowing”. A bump comes by contact, or by the cox of the crew ahead raising an arm to concede. ↩
- RegattaCentral, “Head of the Charles Results”. Bumps are counted from the site’s linked results. ↩
- This site, “Methods statistics” (computed at each rebuild). Counts use only crews linked in consecutive editions. ↩
- This site, “Methods statistics”. The
bowVsPriorFinishfigures: a rank correlation for each pair of consecutive editions. ↩ - This site, “Methods statistics”. The
newcomersfigures. ↩ - This site, “Methods statistics”. The
secondBoatsfigures. ↩ - HOCR, “Rules,” rule 5.6. Each boat carries its bow number card. ↩
- RegattaCentral, “Head of the Charles Results”. Splits at Riverside, Weld, and Cambridge Boat Club. ↩
- This site, “Methods statistics”. The
withinRacefigures. ↩ - This site, “Club registry”. Every mapping from a printed club name to an organization. ↩
- This site, “Club registry”. ↩
- This site, “Methods statistics”. ↩
- HOCR, “Rules,” rule 4.3. Medals depend on entries: a second-place medal from 10 entries, third from 20, fourth from 30, and fifth from 40. ↩
- This site, “Showcase overrides”. ↩
- HOCR, “Rules,” rules 11.6, 12.4, 12.5, and 12.8. Penalties of 5, 10, 30, 60, and 120 seconds. ↩
- RegattaCentral, “Head of the Charles Results”. ↩