Sailing Places Fifth Of 11 at Horn Trophy

The Harvard sailing team turned in yet another solid performance this weekend at the Horn Trophy Regatta, held at the Harvard Sailing Center. After the two-day, eight-race event, the Crimson ended up in fifth place in a field of 11 teams.

The Horn Trophy is a new Regatta in honor of retired coach Mike Horn, who left the Harvard sailing program in September 1997.

The Regatta was a four-division event, and all of the races were sailed in double-handed boats. Divisions A and B navigated LARK model yachts, while Divisions C and D piloted IC, or inter-club, models.

As the Regatta rules stipulate, each team must present at least one boat in which both the skipper and the crew positions are manned by females, and among co-ed boats, at least one boat must be skippered by a female.

Harvard presented two co-ed boats and two women's boats to fill these requirements. In Division A, captain Cori Ermler and senior Becky Rosen sailed on Saturday, and they were replaced by senior Lauren Toretta and junior Sarah Levin yesterday.

Freshmen Sean Doyle and Susan Bonney filled the Division B spots, and freshmen Gabe Dorfman and Cat Lavers raced in Division C. Freshmen Daphne Reeve and Marah Stith manned the Division D boats.

On Saturday, the notorious Charles River winds plagued the entire field.

"The northerly winds were hard to deal with, and you had to catch all the shifts to be competitive," Lavers said.

Nonetheless, Harvard as a team was in fifth place after Saturday's races.

Because of the conditions on Saturday, none of the divisions could finish all of its races. On Sunday, all four divisions finished up their sets, but the team was still struggling with the daunting conditions.

"There was a lot of gusting, but at other times there was no wind at all; you had to jump from puff to puff or you would simply sit still--you might as well have dropped anchor," Reeve said.

Through all the adversity on the course, Harvard still maintained its composure, and at the end of the day it had kept its fifth place standing from the day before. B.U. won the event, followed by Dartmouth, Tufts and MIT.

With the completion of the Horn Regatta, the Crimson is looking to continue its string of quality showings at the Atlantic Coast Championships next weekend, which will be held at Old Dominion in Virginia.

In two weeks, Harvard will send a strong contingent of freshmen sailors--Lavers, Dorfman, Reeve, Brian Smith and James Benenson--to the Freshman Fall Invite at the College of Charleston in South Carolina. In three weeks, Captain Pete Strothman will race in the single-handed Nationals at the University of Southern California.