Saturday's schedule


Freshman race: 2 miles, Mamacoke Hill to Gold Star Bridge, 3 p.m.


Second varsity race: 3 miles, Coast Guard Academy to Gold Star Bridge, 3:45 p.m.


Varsity race: 4 miles, Bartlett’s Cove to Gold Star Bridge, 4:45 p.m.

Yale crew (file photo)

All races downstream

All races are at the Thames River in New London.

What to look for: The main event begins at 4:45 p.m. as heavily-favored Harvard takes on Yale in the 147th Harvard-Yale Regatta. It is the nation’s oldest ongoing intercollegiate athletic rivalry.

Harvard has dominated the four-mile race in recent years, winning 11 of the last 12 times.

The Crimson are about 10 feet away from a perfect season, winning all their dual meets and only finishing second to Brown at last week’s Eastern Sprints by less than a second. Yale is 4-2, though it did beat Brown in a dual meet back in March. Of course, that was just a standard distance race, not the four-mile behemoth that marks today’s historic race.

“If we beat Harvard on Saturday, it’ll be different,” said Yale's Dethlefs said. “I won’t have won four in a row, or whatever, like they have, but it’ll be different. And maybe cooler, I don’t know.”