Harvard Charts Course to Team Racing Championships

It’s time for the Harvard sailing team to book a few more tickets to Texas.

A week after the women’s team qualified for the ICSA North American championships, the Crimson’s combined squad followed suit at Connecticut College on Sunday.

A third-place finish in the Fowle Trophy, the New England team racing championship, guaranteed Harvard a berth in team nationals, to be held in Austin, Tex. in early June.

The Crimson finished behind regatta-winner Dartmouth, which closed out the weekend with a record of 12-2, and Yale, which finished a race ahead of the Harvard.

The weekend didn’t give the Crimson the win it had sought, but Harvard came through with what mattered the most—a shot at nationals.

“Were we really psyched to qualify?” asked sophomore skipper Clay Johnson. “Yes.”

With Johnson, junior captain Vince Porter, and senior Genny Tulloch as skippers, and with sophomores Kristen Lynch and Emily Simon and junior Ruth Schlitz crewing, Harvard launched its three boats in intermittent winds and drizzling rain.

The field was split into two divisions, and the Crimson flexed its collective muscle on Saturday, as it and Yale opened sailing with a perfect 5-0 records. Harvard moved to the second tournament with BC, Brown, Tufts, Connecticut College, Yale, Dartmouth and MIT, as those who failed to qualify headed to the Coast Guard Academy for the Staake Trophy.

“Going into this, there were definitely six really strong contenders, and MIT and Conn were a close seventh and eighth,” Johnson said. “We knew it was going to be really competitive, but BC and Brown struggled a little bit in the earlier rounds, and of the four top remaining teams, we felt we could be one of top remaining three.”

Harvard then sailed in the round of eight against the teams it had yet to face. The Crimson posted a 2-2 record to qualify for the final round, as BC and Conn were dropped.

In the final round-of-six showdown, Harvard finished 3-2 for third place in the regatta.

The Crimson split races with its top competitors, but an unexpected loss in the final round bumped Harvard out of contention for second place.

“Had we not lost to MIT in the last race, we would have been in a sail-off with Yale for the second place,” Schlitz said. “It was sort of frustrating that we didn’t sail as well as we would have liked to.”

Team racing tests a squad’s depth and its ability to work together, as teams race head-to-head in dual match-ups and each tries to get its boats across the finish line in a lower combination than the other.

As usual, Harvard will be up against much of the nation’s best competition, but in conditions that are likely to work to the Crimson’s advantage.

“A lot of it is how much preparation and time you put into it,” Johnson said. “We’ve put in a lot of time, and the best teams always do.”

Like home waters on the Lower Basin of the Charles, Austin’s Lake Travis is known for light, shifty winds.

“We’re excited to have qualified for two out of three North American championships, and we are especially excited to be preparing for nationals in a venue that will be very similar to our own,” Schlitz said. “If we sail to our potential this coming weekend, we will hopefully not only qualify, but be in the mix for the championships.”

GEIGER TROPHY AT MIT

Those who stayed behind contended with typical Boston chill wind and rain at the Geiger Trophy, hosted by MIT. The regatta put sailors in four divisions launching Flying Juniors, Rhodes-19s, and single- and double-handed Tech dinghies. Harvard’s compliment finished sixth of six, a slight four points behind MIT.

The Crimson was led by the A-division of freshman skipper Elyse Dolbec and sophomore crew Cassandra Niemi.

The duo overcame a rough start to post wins in the final two races to finish fourth in their division.

In the B-division, sophomore skipper Robby McIntosh and freshman crew Katie Beck tied with MIT for fifth place.

Junior Rob Grenzeback and the combination of sophomore skipper Marion Guillaume and classmate crew Ashley Nathanson finished sixth in the C- and D-divisions, respectively.

WOMEN’S ACCOLADES

In the wake of the New England women’s qualifiers, the All-New England Women’s Team was named. In light of the Crimson women’s dominance in the regatta, the Harvard-heavy squad was not surprising.

Sophomores Christina Dahlman and Simon were named All-New England crews, while junior captain Sloan Devlin and Tulloch took equivalent honors as skippers.

Harvard, Yale, and Brownn each had four sailors named to the squad, the most of any teams.

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