Top Harvard Skippers Return to Lead at Regattas

While the breeze over the Charles River may have seemed shifty and fickle, the prevailing winds of fortune nevertheless blew the Crimson’s way this weekend.

Buoyed by the return of four of its top skippers, the Harvard sailing team righted its doublehanded racing campaign, winning the women’s Victorian Urn regatta and taking sixth in the Erwin Schell Trophy regatta to qualify both co-ed and women’s squads for the Atlantic Coast Championships, to be held next Saturday at MIT.

Both co-ed and women’s regattas sailed the lower Charles River, as MIT staged the Schell Trophy and Harvard hosted the Victorian Urn from neighboring sailing centers.

VICTORIAN URN REGATTA

The Crimson women made the utmost of home turf advantage, dominating the Victorian Urn. Harvard sailed out of its own floating home on Larks and Flying Juniors, to both of which the team is accustomed.

After 16 races, the Crimson won with 133 points, while second-place Boston College finished with 198.

With senior Genny Tulloch at skipper and captain Laura Schubert at crew, Harvard sailed at the front of the A-division, winning two races and placing second in seven more. The Crimson finished with 73 points, while Brown took second in the A-division with 97.

“We knew the conditions and were better equipped to handle them,” Tulloch said.

Skippered by junior Sloan Devlin, the women’s B-division displayed even greater consistency, controlling the B-division by winning five races and placing in the top five in all but two. Sophomore Christina Dahlman sailed as crew until an injury to her finger brought in junior Mallory Greimann, who took over for the rest of the regatta.

ERWIN SCHELL TROPHY REGATTA

Just up the river, Harvard’s co-ed team posted results that were a step up, albeit not as large a step as that for which the team’s skippers could have wished.

A-division boats sailed in Tech dinghies, with Johnson skippering and junior Ruth Schlitz crewing for the Crimson. The duo began by placing ninth or higher in their first four races, but picked up better position as the regatta unfolded, winning the last two races to place sixth.

“We did as well as we had expected, but not as we had hoped,” Schlitz said. “We had the potential to do better, but I think that the lessons we learned this week will enable us to do better at the [Atlantic Coast Championships].”

Kovacs took the helm of a Flying Junior dinghy with sophomore Emily Simon at crew, as the two finished seventh in the B-division. Kovacs and Simon won two races in the regatta.

While the finish qualified Harvard for the Atlantic Coast Championships, it nevertheless demonstrated the challenge of switching vessel designs.

“Kyle and I have sailed a lot of Lasers and done a lot of singlehanded sailing in the last month, and we have done very little doublehanded,” Clay Johnson said. “You could definitely see that we hadn’t been practicing as much. Our boat handling and tacks were off a little.”

The Crimson’s doublehanded sailing had struggled in previous weeks, as Johnson, Devlin, Kovacs and Tulloch had sailed Laser dinghies, preparing for and competing in the Intercollegiate Sailing Association singlehanded championships. The end of the singlehanded season allowed the four to return to shore up the doublehanded program.

“What enabled us to post this great score was that we had both our best skippers,” Tulloch said. “We were finally able to put our top few players out on the field, and the results show that.”

“I think a big factor this weekend was the fact that we didn’t have anyone sailing singlehandeds, so we had all our top skippers sailing doublehanded. We’ve been stretched really thin the last couple weekends,” Schubert said.

Sailing at home gave Harvard another edge—familiarity with conditions on the water.

A weak and shifty wind blew through light rain as sailors cast off from the docks Saturday morning. The sky cleared on Sunday, as winds blew as strong as 20 knots down the Charles around noon.

“It was home turf advantage,” Schubert said. “I’m sure for other people it was even tougher, because they’re not used to this shifty, no-breeze sailing.”

“We are good at that kind of sailing,” Schlitz added.

NOTES

Johnson’s ability to watch the race unfold suffered Saturday, as he had to wear protective goggles on top of glasses through the drizzle after scratching his cornea in a contact lens-related mishap. “I couldn’t get any water in them, especially dirty Charles River water. Fortunately, it was Halloween, so I kind of fit in,” Johnson said. “Did it affect my race a little? Yes, but no excuses. I didn’t sail as well as I would have liked to.” ... The Schell Trophy regatta drew perhaps more live—if unwitting—spectators than any collegiate sailing or Harvard athletic event in history, as an estimated 400,000 fans lined the Lower Basin of the Charles River to watch the world champion Boston Red Sox parade through town in triumph. The Red Sox’s procession boarded Duckboats to cross the river, interrupting the regatta for an hour.