Harvard Registers Another Busy Weekend Before ACCs

No one would have blamed them for a sub-par performance.

Traveling to Rhode Island and Connecticut for the last stops on the most grueling stretch of its schedule, the Crimson co-ed sailing team could have been forgiven for showing some signs of fatigue, despite the importance of the upcoming Atlantic Coast Championships.

Instead, however, the team ended its series of marathon weekends with a bang, surging to a second-place finish in the Nelson Regatta at Connecticut College and missing first by only ten point­s—a performance that could prove to be important for the upcoming women’s ACC’s.

The weekend was the sixth straight in which Harvard has participated in three or more events, a workload the Crimson will face just once more this season. While this could be viewed as a legitimate justification for declining performance, the team made no such excuses.

“Sailing is sailing, whether it’s a singlehanded laser or a four-division regatta,” junior Clay Johnson said. “I don’t really think the variation in the schedule has hurt us, we’ve actually been sailing really well lately.”

“If anything, it could be helping us, having so much more time in the boats,” sophomore Elyse Dolbec pointed out.

Harvard was propelled to its second-place overall finish by strong performances in both the A and B divisions. Co-captain Sloan Devlin and junior Christina Dahlman participated in the A division races, steering the Crimson to 88 points and fifth place.

In the B division, Dolbec and freshman Roberta Steele finished in second place with 55 points, just three points out of first. Their performance included a streak of five out of six top-three finishes.

While the Crimson’s second-place ranking marked a major success, there was one important obstacle to declaring the weekend a complete and total success: the fact that the first-place finisher was rival Yale.

”We definitely have to beat Yale, especially since they’re the dominant women’s team,” Dolbec said. “This weekend was more about qualifying for the women’s Atlantic Coast Championship, but it was definitely a disappointment to lose to Yale.”

Harvard also braved inclement weather to participate in the Hoyt Trophy held in Providence over the weekend, finishing seventh out of 18 competing teams.

Racing was made difficult by the combination of cold, damp air and periods of heavy rain that increased the strength of the currents.

“Normally there’s not that much current at Brown, but because it rained so much there were some weird current lines out there,” said Johnson, who also cited shifting breezes as an important factor. “The breeze was very light on Saturday and very breezy on Sunday, so it was two extreme ends of the spectrum. There were a lot of lead changes, and some really close racing.”

Johnson and fellow junior Kristen Lynch placed ninth in A-division racing with 120 points, while seniors Vincent Porter and Ruth Schiltz managed fifth in the B-division with a score of 42.

“We’ve been sailing pretty well lately, I think I just had an off-week,” Johnson said. “It was just a shame that Vinny [Porter] and I had one at the same time.”

The Crimson also participated in the Smith Trophy competition held at MIT, placing eleventh out of 23 teams in the first day of action.

Next weekend promises a somewhat lighter workload for the team, which will return home to the waters of the Charles River to participate in the Victorian Urn.

—Staff writer Daniel J. Rubin-Wills can be reached at drubin@fas.harvard.edu.