Women Set Pace During Weekend Regattas

Following a performance a week ago in which the No. 10 Harvard women’s sailing team took first place at the Captain Hurst Bowl in Hanover, N.H., the Crimson was out to prove this weekend that last week’s result was no fluke.

Mission accomplished.

In the second week of the young women’s sailing season, Harvard again traveled to a Dartmouth-hosted event and again earned first place honors. This time it was the Mrs. Hurst Bowl, the first women’s intersectional of 2006.

Sophomores Roberta Steele and Christina Cordeiro earned a three-point win in A-division, while sophomore skipper Megan Watson and junior crew Christina Dahlman did the same in B-division, winning by five points. A severe lack of wind on Sunday halted two races, giving the Crimson the early win.

“We didn’t get to sail on Sunday, but on Saturday the conditions were pretty similar to what we’d been practicing on in Boston,” Watson said. “It was light, shifty, and we were sailing in the same boats. That helped us a lot.”

Harvard’s win came against some of the best competition it will face all season. No. 8 Georgetown, No. 6 Yale, No. 7 Boston College and No. 5 St. Mary’s took places two through five, while four of the next five teams received votes in the most recent poll.

“Roberta and Christina were sailing in some of the best women’s boats in college right now,” Watson said. “They did a really good job, and the fact that they won A-division made it easier for us.”

“[It’s] a more important competition,” Steele said a week ago, referring to this week’s regatta. “There’s more competition from everywhere on the water.”

The Mrs. Hurst Bowl wasn’t the only regatta of the week, however, as the No. 3-ranked co-ed squad also sailed in the Nevins Trophy at the United States Merchant Marine Academy in King’s Point, N.Y.

The action ended with the Crimson finishing in eighth place, 22 points behind the College of Charleston. Boston College won the event by a ten-point margin, while Georgetown and Roger Williams University tied for second.

The A-division veteran senior duo of Clay Johnson and Kristen Lynch captured sixth for Harvard, while the best showing of the day came from juniors Kyle Kovacs and Elyse Dolbec, who turned in a second-place finish in B-division. Freshman Drew Robb single-handedly sailed his C-division boat to a 15th-place finish in C-division.

Watson complemented the women’s performance by contrasting it with that of the co-ed team.

“I think it makes a statement to the other colleges that even though some of us are younger, we can compete just as well as the co-ed team,” she said.

The third and final regatta of the weekend was the local Hatch Brown Trophy, which took place at MIT and Boston University. Many of the usual suspects were in action, with Yale, Brown, Tufts, Boston College and MIT taking the top five spots. Harvard took 15th place on the strength of freshmen Andrew Flynn and Lauren Brants in A-division, while freshman Liz Powers and senior Ashley Nathanson nabbed the 11th sport in B-division.

In the end, though, the weekend belonged to the women.

“We just did a great job of being conservative enough to not make any big mistakes,” Watson said. “The races were long enough that you didn’t have to be the first off the line, and we stuck with it the entire time.”

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