Yachting Team Qualifies For Championship Finals

The Crimson yachting team has qualified for the finals of the New England team racing championship, with an impressive weekend victory in the semi-finals at New London.

The sailors will defend the Leonard M. Fowle trophy against M.I.T., second-place finisher in the New London trials, and against the top qualifiers in the "B" elimination, Coast Guard and Boston University.

As the Crimson swept to its sixth straight victory of the season, Carter Ford, Mike Horn, Mike Lehmann, and Dave Stookey showed the same outstanding ability that won the trophy last year and should enable the team to keep it in Cambridge for another season.

For the most part, winds on Saturday and Sunday were light and shifty from the south. Crimson sailors did not lose a match throughout the regatta and won all but two of the six starts.

A strong crew from the University of Rhode Island threatened the Crimson, in the first race, as its four boats started well and maintained a team lead until the last windward leg of the triangular course. But Lehmann, in first place, managed to slow down the second and third U.R.I. boats, letting Stookey slip into first and giving the Crimson a 1-4-5 win.

After the U.R.I. threat, it was all clear and easy sailing. The Crimson team scored "grand-slam" wins (1-2-3-4 places to the opponents' 5-6-7-8) over Brown, Wesleyan, and Yale, and staved off a slightly stronger Holy Cross challenge.

The final race of the series paired Harvard against M.I.T.

The Crimson team play sufficed to give Harvard a win over M.I.T. and first place in the "A" group semi-finals.