Sailing Sunk By Lack Of Sustained Winds

The weather during the Atlantic Coast Championships (ACC) took the wind out of Harvard’s sails—literally. Both the coed team, which was at SUNY Maritime for the Atlanic Coast Dinghies, and the women’s team, at Old Dominion University, did not fair well as well as they would have liked this weekend.

The races were cut short because of the adverse weather conditions and the lack of a usable breeze, forcing the coed team to settle for second place while the women’s team took 13th place.

The first day of sailing for the coed team went well for the Crimson’s ‘A’ boats, which took advantage of the strong winds and finished the six races on the day only three points behind Brown and five points ahead of Dartmouth.

Captain Cardwell Potts and senior David Darst started off strong and placed in the top three in each of the first three races. The sailors struggled in the fourth and fifth races, however, placing sixth and then eighth.

But a first-place finish in the final race put Harvard in a good position at the end of the day.

The ‘B’ boats proved to be the decisive factor in determining the winner and the losers of the ACC for the coed teams. Harvard junior Genny Tulloch and senior Gabe Jostrom came in fourth, 13 points behind the leader, the Big Green. The first race proved to be the worst, and the team came in 14th place.

Though it improved significantly and came in first place in the last race, the Crimson was unable to top Dartmouth, whose ‘B’ boat finished in the top-four in every race but one, in which it placed 10th.

The Bears’ ‘B’ boat ended up having even more points than Harvard’s, bringing Brown down as well.

Since there was no sailing on the second day, the standings after the six races counted. Normally, the teams sail anywhere between 12 and 16 races. The early end hurt the Crimson because it did not give Harvard a chance to come back. The Big Green took first place, followed by Harvard, with the Bears rounding out the top three.

“We would have liked to have more races,” Potts said. “It was disappointing.”

Women’s Varsity

The women’s team had even more troubles of its own at Old Dominion. Though it uses the Flying Juniors regularly, the light wind proved to be a problem.

The teams sailed a full first day, with eight ‘A’ races and six ‘B’ races.

However, only two ‘B’ races were held the second day because of the wind conditions.

The ‘A’ boats, captained by senior Jennie Philbrick with seniors Diana Rodin and Clemmie Everett splitting time as crew, came in 12th place, 48 points removed from first-place Tufts.

The highest the ‘A’ team was able to place was seventh, in the third, seventh, and eighth races of the day.

Otherwise, the Crimson came in the 12th, 13th or 14th slot.

“It was definitely my worst performance,” Philbrick said. “It’s ironic that it came on the heels of our new [Sailing World College Rankings] No. 1 ranking. Hopefully we can get back on track for nationals next weekend.”

The women’s ‘B’ boat did better, but still not well enough to edge out the competition.

During the first race, sophomores Sloan Devlin and Mallory Greimann were disqualified after losing a protest with Brown, which went on to win the ‘B’ flight overall and came in first in the ACC.

After a slow start, the ‘B’ boat came in fourth in races four through six, and then in third in the seventh race. But that was the highest it would place, and the team ended up tenth in the last race.

“Harvard struggled, and we were hurt when Mallory and I got disqualified,” Devlin said. “After a slow start on the first day, the lack of sailing on the second day prevented us from trying to make a come-back.”

The sailing team hopes to recuperate at the American Men’s and Women’s Singlehanded Championship, which starts Thursday at Eckerd College in Florida.

Devlin, Tulloch and Philbrick are slated to compete on the women’s side, while freshman Clay Johnson and sophomore Vince Porter both qualified for the men’s competition.