Sailing Team Beats Coast Guard In 179 1/2-179 Championship Match

A half-point margin after a full afternoon of races yesterday gave the Harvard sailing team this year's New England Dinghy Team Racing Championship. The final score was 179 1/2 to 179 over the Coast Guard Academy.

Darkness forced the cancellation of a seventh race after each team had won three. Officials therefore decided the match on cumulative point totals, rather than the usual "best-four-of-seven" basis. They announced they would use the point scores before the sixth race began. With only one leg to go in the final race, the Crimson sailers held places too low to win the over-all prize.

Mike Horn and Mike Lehmann led the Crimson boats at this point, holding third and fifth positions respectively. Horn was able to interfere with the wind-supply of the Coast Guard sailer in fourth, however, slowing the opposition down enough for Lehmann to move up to fourth place.

Lehmann did not slip by the Coast Guard boat until the finish line was about 25 yards away, but by doing so he raised Harvard's point score enough to swing the cumulative total.

The Crimson went into the sixth race leading 151 1/2 to 146 3/4, after it had swept the first two races, lost narrowly in the third, lost disastrously in the fourth, and come from behind to win the fifth.

A one-two finish in the second race by Harvard skippers Horn and Carter Ford, coupled with foul-outs by two of the Coast Guard boats, provided the Crimson with the point margin which eventually led to the over-all win. Ford won the first race, with Lehmann second.

The Coast Guard earned the right to meet Harvard by defeating M.I.T. 4 to 3 in a series not completed until late yesterday morning. Harvard defeated B.U., 4 to 0, in the other semi-final round, raced Saturday.