Harvard Consistent In Weekend Events

A team striving for consistency in consecutive weeks accomplished its goal over the weekend, as Harvard’s sailing teams competed in four events, ending three in third place and notching a single fourth-place finish.

It was the first multi-event weekend of the spring in which every finish was fourth place or better, a performance that serves as just the second-to-last tune up before the beginning of the three-week NEISA Championship, which begins in less than two weeks.

TEAM RACING SERIES 3

The Crimson hosted an event each day of the weekend, with its best home results coming in Sunday’s Team Racing Series 3 on the Charles River. Ten races were on the docket for the four-team bill of Boston College, Tufts, Harvard, and Bowdoin. The Eagles failed to lose a race all day en route to the first-place finish, while the Jumbos’ 6-4 mark was good enough for second, with the Crimson finishing third at 4-6.

A lack of experience sailing together didn’t hamper the team’s performances.

“It was definitely a team without a lot of team racing experience,” senior crew Mallory Greimann said. “But it was good for developing our skills, and the conditions on were nice.”

Freshman skipper Andrew Flynn led the way along with junior crew Robby McIntosh, while junior Marion Guillaume and freshman Margaret Wang skippered the other boats. Greimann and sophomore Alicia Harley crewed those boats, respectively.

It was just the second time that Guillaume and Greimann had sailed in the same boat.

“I was pleased with how I sailed considering we’d only been in a boat together one other time,” she said.

FERRARONE TROPHY @ YALE

The lone road trip for Harvard had the No. 4 co-ed team traveling to New Haven for a 12-team regatta. The Crimson’s three boats at the event helped Harvard to a third-place finish behind Tufts and host Yale. Each school sailed 12 races, with the Crimson finishing at 7-5, while the Bulldogs and Jumbos earned records of 10-2 and 9-3, respectively.

Junior skipper Clay Johnson teamed up with senior crew Ruth Schlitz in the first boat, and co-captain Vincent Porter was joined by junior crew Christina Dahlman in the second. The sophomore team of skipper Kyle Kovacs and crew Elyse Dolbec rounded out the participants.

WOMEN’S PRESIDENT’S TROPHY @ BU

The No. 10 women’s team also took third place on nearby waters, as Boston University hosted a 15-team field that saw Dartmouth walk away with top honors. MIT finished in second place, while Harvard’s score of 175 total points was just enough to hold off fourth-place Boston College. The Crimson relied solely on its freshmen at the regatta, and the young ladies failed to disappoint. The team was paced by the performance of skipper Megan Watson and crew Lauren Brants, who finished in second-place for Harvard’s B-division. Skipper Roberta Steele and crew Christina Cordeiro, who have sailed in the same boat for the past several weeks, helped the Crimson maintain its position with a seventh-place finish in A-division.

It was the first freshmen-only multi-boat performance of the season for the women, and the strong results bode well for future regattas.

METRO SERIES 3

Flynn and Harley began their weekends at the Metro Series 3 on the Charles River, earning fifth place for Harvard’s A-division. McIntosh and Wang swapped their roles from before, as Wang crewed and McIntosh skippered this time out, in a performance also good enough for fifth-place in the Crimson’s B-division, while the team took fourth overall.

“The team handled things really well,” Wang said. “We had some bad luck at some times, but overall we sailed pretty well.”

It was the first time out competitively for Wang, who recognizes the team’s room for improvement.

“Things were generally okay, but they weren’t phenomenal,” she said. “It was an accurate reflection of our current sailing experience.”

—Staff writer Malcom A. Glenn can be reached at mglenn@fas.harvard.edu.