The Bay View rowing team, training on the Seekonk River last week, will make its debut in the Head of the Charles Regatta in Boston next Sunday. For a slide show and a video of the Bengals practicing, go to HSgametime.com

The Providence Journal / Ruben W. Perez

They have no idea what awaits them when they dip their oars in the Charles River and pull away from Boston University’s DeWolfe Boat House next Sunday.

None.

Thousands upon thousands of spectators — 250,000 according to some estimates — will crowd the river banks and pack the seven bridges connecting Boston and Cambridge along the serpentine three-mile course that ends at Soldiers Field Road in Brighton. They will cheer rowers young and old, from near and far. They will go crazy when they spot boats from their club or school glide by.

“It’s so exciting,” Emilie Marchetti said. “There are so many people. I’ve never seen so many people in one place who have the same passion. Everyone is excited.”

It’s the 44th Head of the Charles Regatta, to be held Oct. 18-19. It is the largest rowing spectacle in the world, and next Sunday a varsity eight from St. Mary Academy-Bay View will make its HOCR debut.

Think of the Head of the Charles as the Boston Marathon of rowing. Among the 8,000-plus competitors will be Olympic medalists, collegians, masters who have rowed for decades and first-timers such as the Bay View Bengals.

“It’s a cavalcade of rowing. You have the best athletes in the world and everybody else,” said Albin Moser, the Bay View coach and a rower since he discovered the sport as a Brown University freshman in February 1964.

Moser, 63, is a retired teacher and administrator. He took over the Bay View program in 2004 and has nurtured it from nine rowers and one coxswain — the coxswain, or cox, is the skipper of the boat who sits in the stern, gives commands and steers — to 25 rowers and four coxswains.

Bay View rowing has progressed from an afterschool activity to a serious sport requiring discipline and dedication. If the girls are not training on the Seekonk River, they are working on the eight ergometers (rowing machines) in the Bay View Wellness Center.

Marchetti is one of the three senior tri-captains this year but the only one with HOCR experience. She was the cox for a Narragansett Boat Club masters women’s crew last year.

“It was a little nerve-racking. There is so much pressure. There are so many boats. The crew is focused on you,” she said.

Unlike a traditional race course, which is straight and has lanes, the Charles has turns and bridges that coxswains must navigate around and under. There are no lanes, only buoys marking the sides of the course.

“The course is geared for the cox. I didn’t find it too bad. I guess I specialize in turns,” she said.

Marchetti, Moser said, “has tremendous skills in helping the girls develop as rowers, not just on the water but in the erg room as well. And she rows during the summer.”

“The rowers appreciate you more because you understand what they’re doing,” Marchetti said of her experience pulling an oar.

Alice Murray in the No. 5 seat and Harlee Nordstrom in the No. 3 are the other captains, and they can’t wait to get to Boston.

“It’s really exciting. The biggest thing is we’re doing it as a team. It will be really fun to do it together,” Murray said.

“It’s definitely a huge opportunity,” Nordstrom added. “Coming on to the team as a sophomore, I never thought we’d get into a huge regatta. Even in college it would be an honor. But in high school it’s quite the adventure. Olympic medalists? Just to be with them? Amazing!”

Murray sets the standard for the Bengal rowers. She has the fastest 2,000-meter and 4,000-meter times on the ergometer. “She has excelled,” Moser said. Nordstrom has developed as a result of rowing with the Narragansett Boat Club in the summer.

The boat that Moser will launch at the HOCR is laden with seniors. Maeve Garlick is in the No. 8 seat, or stroke. She sits right in front of Marchetti and lets the cox know what is coming from the rear.

Lauren Labossionniere is in the No. 7 seat. She rows only in the fall because she “is into other sports in the spring.”

Michelle Mackie and Jenny Holtz take turns in the No. 2 seat. Mackie has been rowing for three years, Holtz for two.

Junior Celine Gill is in the bow seat, junior Helen Manzella in the No. 4 and sophomore Chelsea Robin in the No. 6.

“The classes of 2007, 2008 and now 2009 have been instrumental in bringing the program to where it is now. They really worked hard in the winter, fall and spring and rowed in the summer as well,” Moser said. “It’s been quite a wonderful experience for me, in a sense going back to the future and working with these girls and helping them improve.”

Moser has been as instrumental as any student in Bay View’s success.

“He is phenomenal. He has just done wonders with the crew program. He has instilled pride and discipline,” said Cindy Neal, director of athletics.

Bay View started its program in 1999 with help from Libby Armstrong and Mary Latta, mothers of daughters who wanted to row. The girls who row now pay $310 in the fall and again in the spring to cover the cost of renting the racing shells. They also have to pay for overnight stays at regattas. Bay View picks up the cost of Moser’s salary, trailer rental, transportation and the cox box, a speaker system for the coxswain.

mszostak@projo.com