Sailing Takes Top Two Fleets at Navy

They were the rustiest sailors, with the least on-water time and the fewest practices. But when the competition finished this weekend in Annapolis, Md., the Harvard women’s sailing team was the only superlative that mattered: best.

Despite holding only about a week’s worth of practices when other squads had been sailing for almost a month, the Crimson women cruised to a first-place finish at Navy’s Women’s Intersectional. The squad won both the A and B divisions led by sophomores Genny Tulloch and Sloan Devlin, respectively. Moreover, Harvard only once finished a race outside the top 10.

“We’re definitely still getting back into the swing,” Tulloch said. “But it was not luck, it was all skill. We were tactically smarter and faster. That’s why we dominated.”

Making its victory more remarkable, in addition to its lack of practice time, the Crimson had another thing working against it: a hastily put-together team. Freshman crew Christina Dahlman, who was slated to head to Maryland this weekend, hurt her knee and could not make the trip. But as further proof of perhaps the team’s greatest strength—its depth—seniors Emily Nielson and Caroline Dixon stepped up.

“Two people came who we didn’t think were coming,” Tulloch said. “Sloan sailed with two people she had never sailed with before, Caroline Dixon and Emily Nielson, a pair of seniors, and they did excellently.”

Dixon agreed: “We had two regular crews, and two tall crews, so no matter the conditions, we were well equipped.”

“It was exciting,” Dixon added. “I’m usually skipper, but this weekend I was crewing for Sloan in B [division]. It was awesome, she’s a great person to sail with. We were able to keep the boat flat. When it gets heavy, you need tall people so you can balance the boat better. When it’s flat you go faster. If you’re taller you get more mass out of the boat.”

Because they had practiced so little, not to mention the unfamiliar team combinations, Harvard just kept it simple.

“It was really good and consistent,” Dixon said. “We had good starts, and we kept our momentum going. There weren’t any big mistakes. Just being really consistent, good boat speed. That comes from having good crew combinations, just having good tactics. Genny and Sloan are very good tactical sailors.”

“We were really consistent and fast,” Tulloch added.

The weather on the Severn River was breezy on Saturday, when the Crimson got out to its big lead, and lighter on Sunday, but strong enough for the women to hold their lead.

Yale’s sailors finished second, followed by the College of Charleston and, in something of a surprise, 10th-ranked Navy finished fourth.

Dixon said the win was a great way to build momentum at the start of the season. It will probably also move the team’s ranking up a slot, to No. 2 on Sailing World’s list. But it’s still early, she said.

“We still have a lot more to work on,” said the Manchester, Mass. native. “We have a lot of new combinations, people who haven’t sailed together.”

But she added one more thing the team didn’t mind.

“We beat Yale, too.”