Sailing Stalls in Tune-Ups for Regionals

Unpredictable winds blew Harvard’s No. 8 coed and No. 12 women’s sailing teams a few degrees off course this weekend, as the Crimson’s top boats finished respectably but unexceptionally in two major intersectional regattas.

Whether spotty and gusting, as at the women’s Dellenbaugh Trophy, or simply nonexistent, as on Saturday at the coeds’ Admiral’s Cup, the atmospheric challenges curbed Harvard’s chances of delivering a compelling statement in the final run-up to national qualifiers.

In addition to weaker finishes in local regattas, the Crimson finished sixth in the Admiral’s Cup and fourth in the Dellenbaugh but downplayed the results’ reflection on the team’s capacities against top competition.

“We’re content with [the scores]. It’s nice to give the other teams a little false sense of security to think that they’re better than us,” sophomore Clay Johnson said

The Crimson will sail the next three weekends in regional qualifiers—first for the women, then for team racing, and finally for coed fleet racing. This year, there is no obvious frontrunner heading into the qualifiers. Yale, Brown, Dartmouth, Tufts, and BC could all be reasonably expected to compete for the coed championship, with the Bulldogs and Bears posing perhaps the greatest challenge for the women’s New England title.

“I think at a national level it’s anyone’s game this year. Among all the teams in the country, there actually isn’t a dominant team this year,” Schubert said.

With the weekend’s fickle winds preventing a fair assessment of the team’s preparation, its sailors are left with something to prove and a regatta to win.

“I think we have an excellent chance to win or come in number two this weekend,” junior captain Sloan Devlin said.

ADMIRAL’S CUP

Harvard didn’t open Saturday’s sailing at Kings Point with gusto, but was in close striking distance by the end of the day.

A still Sunday denied the Crimson the chance to close the gap with first-place Yale, however, and Harvard took sixth in the interrupted competition.

“It would have been nice if it’d been a real regatta and if we’d done really well,” Schubert said. “Definitely, we weren’t on fire, but we were doing fine.”

In the B-division, the duo of skipper Johnson and sophomore crew Kristen Lynch won two races and posted two second-place finishes to take second in the division.

“We were a little disappointed to be sixth overall,” Johnson said. “Although we were sixth, we were only 30 or 35 points out of it overall. The fact that we didn’t sail the second day hurt our chances.”

Junior captain Vince Porter skippered as junior Ruth Schlitz and senior Laura Schubert split time at crew in the Crimson’s A-division, finishing anywhere from first to 14th. The A-division took seventh, though their seventh was only a few points out of fourth place.

Freshman Kyle Kovacs had a difficult day, sailing singlehanded to an 11th-place finish in the C-division. Johnson’s brother Reed, a freshman at BC, won the C-division.

“Kyle and Vince were pretty anxious to go out and prove they could do better, but they didn’t have the chance,” Johnson said.

OBERG TROPHY at MIT

Harvard finished ninth of 10 teams, topping Southern Maine in the three-division Oberg Trophy regatta at MIT. Sailors completed four races per division in the win, and the Crimson combined to finish ninth in 10 of the 12 races, overall.

Senior Daphne Lyman skippered the A-division, with freshman Max Chalfin crewing.

Sophomore Marion Guillaume skippered the B-division as freshman Katie Beck crewed, while junior Rob Grenzeback and freshman Alicia Harley teamed up at skipper and crew in the C-division.

METRO SERIES 4 at TUFTS

The Metro Series 4 at Tufts got off to a slow start on Saturday due, predictably, to the absence of breezes.

Harvard, meanwhile, commenced with a rough start. The team’s troubles continued throughout the regatta, scraping out a 12th place finish of 13 teams overall.

Guillaume skippered with Beck at crew as the A-division boat took 12th, as did the B-division, skippered by Grenzeback and crewed by Chaflin.

BU TROPHY

The Crimson finished 12th of 16 in the BU Trophy, led by sophomore Pat Mauro and senior Jenny Wong, who combined to finish 10th in the A-division.

Sophomores Robbie McIntosh and Sam Fink paired up to finish 13th in the B-division.

Coast Guard won the sophomore- and freshman-heavy regatta.

WOMEN’S DELLENBAUGH

Big gusts made for big inconsistency at the 19th Dellenbaugh Trophy, held at Brown Saturday and Sunday.

Although Harvard’s Saturday results did not bode well, the squad pulled itself together Sunday to turn in a fourth-place finish against some of the nation’s best.

“I think we struggled. I think we can do much better and I think that Sunday we proved we can do much better, but obviously Saturday’s results count too,” Devlin said.

In the A-division, senior skipper Genny Tulloch and sophomore crew Emily Simon took third.

Their finishes testify to the regatta’s erratic winds, as they posted three finishes at 15th place but also won four races and finished in the top four in four more.

Devlin and sophomore crew Christina Dahlman took fourth in the B-division, improving on an inconsistent start to finish in the top ten for the final six races.

“I think on Saturday we were struggling with the conditions that we saw. We posted scores that were all over the map, in part because the winds were also really fluky...We had not seen anything like that this season, so I don’t think that we were all that prepared for it,” Devlin said.

—Staff writer Samuel C. Scott can be reached at sscott@fas.harvard.edu.