Tough Weekend For Sailors at Sloops

After reclaiming the No. 1 spot in the coed national rankings, the Harvard sailing team suffered a tough weekend, failing to qualify for the national championships in sloops competition.

In other action, the women’s team sent two freshman skippers to an intersectional competition at Yale, and captured eighth in the weather-shortened contest. The women fell one spot in the latest rankings, and stand as the No. 9 team in the nation.

The Crimson, two-time defending sloops national champions, came in fifth at the NEISA Sloop Championships. Only the first two teams, Brown and URI, will move on to Sloops Nationals.

“Going in, we felt pretty good,” said junior Cardwell Potts. “Things didn’t work out too well. It just wasn’t our weekend.”

For starters, Saturday competition was “blown out” by gusty wind conditions and choppy water, forcing the sailors to compete for the top two spots without the luxury of making important technical changes after a day on the water.

Moreover, sloops is not a widespread type of sailing, and some teams in the competition had more practice than others, according to Potts.

On the women’s side, it was trial by fire for a pair of freshmen skippers. The Yale Women’s Intersectional saw gusty Saturday winds of up to 30 knots and more than a few capsized boats.

“It was the most intense conditions I had sailed under in college,” said freshman skipper Genny Tulloch, who captured seventh in the ‘A’ division along with junior Lizz Lord.

In the ‘B’ division, the Crimson placed ninth under skipper Sloan Devlin. Their combined efforts netted an eighth-place finish for Harvard.

Despite the finish, the Crimson can be confident because two freshmen performed well in their biggest collegiate test yet. Going into the last race, Harvard lay fifth in the field of 18.

“There was definitely more pressure going into this weekend than any other,” Tulloch said. “An intersectional is a bigger regatta.”

In local competition, seniors Liam Mahoney and Zoe Epstein captured first place in the ‘A’ division of competition for the Wood Trophy. The Crimson finished third overall on the day.

At the Metro Series Six, hosted by MIT, the Crimson also captured third, taking sixth in the ‘A’ division and second in the ‘B.’

Harvard heads to Coast Guard next weekend for the New England regional qualifying regatta for singlehanded nationals. The top four teams will move on to compete for a national championship.

—Staff writer Robert A. Cacace can be reached at cacace@fas.harvard.edu.