Co-eds Earn Nationals Position

After the No. 9 Harvard women’s sailing team qualified for nationals at last week’s Women’s New England Championships, it was up to the No. 4 co-eds to duplicate the performance over the weekend at the annual Fowle Trophy. The host Crimson capitalized on its home-water advantage, earning third place overall and securing the regatta’s final invitation to nationals at the end of the month in Annapolis, Md.

Despite being the host school, the teams actually raced down the Charles River at MIT. Twelve teams pre-qualified to compete at the championship team race, which featured three sets of round-robin elimination races.

In the first set, two round robin races eliminated Rhode Island, Boston University, Brown and MIT from contention. Though eight schools remained, it had already become clear that the regatta would end up being a four-team competition.

“As the regatta progressed, it was apparent that four teams were equally good,” senior skipper Clay Johnson said.

Another round robin eliminated Tufts, the Coast Guard Academy, Roger Williams and Connecticut College, leaving four teams—Yale, Dartmouth, Boston College and Harvard—to battle for just three nationals spots.

“It was very touch and go as to who was going to qualify,” senior skipper Matt Knowles said. “It was up in the air going into the last round as to who would get the qualifying spots.”

When it was all said and done, Dartmouth took top honors on the strength of an 11-2 final record, while Yale finished in second-place with a 9-4 mark. The Crimson was 8-5 during the two-day regatta, while Boston College was 6-7 in fourth place.

“We ended up in a pretty close third,” Johnson said. “We’re pretty ecstatic to get third. We didn’t necessarily sail our best, but we pulled out moves when we had to.”

The success came thanks to an experienced Harvard fleet consisting of three boats. Johnson and senior crew Kristen Lynch were sailing in the final Fowle trophy of their careers, while junior captain skipper Kyle Kovacs and junior crew Elyse Dolbec put forth perhaps the strongest performance of the weekend. Knowles and senior crew Emily Simon—a boat that hadn’t sailed in the event in years past—also paced the Crimson during a difficult weekend.

“Kyle Kovacs told me it was one of the most stressful regattas he’s ever sailed in his life,” Johnson said. “Everyone was right in the mix the whole time, and every race was really important.”

“Kyle sailed really well yesterday, really fast,” Knowles said. “He had some good starts all weekend.”

Knowles and Simon replaced the boat of skipper Vincent Porter ’06 and crew Ruth Schlitz ’06, which helped Harvard to a third-place finish at the same event last year.

In 2006, Johnson and Simon sailed together, while this year marked the return of Lynch to her regular pairing with Johnson.

“I have to take my hat off to Matt Knowles and Emily Simon,” Johnson said. “We had Vinny Porter as our third boat last year, and coming into this year we weren’t sure what our third boat would be. Matt has worked really hard to improve, and without his improvement and dedication, we wouldn’t have sailed as well as we did.”

It was the Crimson’s success against BC on Saturday and Sunday that proved the difference between sailing at nationals and an early end to the season.

“We did pretty well against BC—we beat them in all the races we sailed, which was big for us,” Knowles said. “We struggled more against Yale, and also against Dartmouth. Dartmouth had a strong last round, and they pushed forward to take the win.”

Harvard’s chance for redemption against its two Ivy rivals will come in the same Annapolis waters that the Crimson has used for practice all season.

“I think we have a chance to do really well at nationals,” Knowles said. “We’re definitely optimistic about our chances.”

Before that, however, Harvard still has next week’s New England Dinghy Championship in New London, Conn.

“We’ll practice hard for that, and then we’ll have a few weeks off with no regattas for finals,” Johnson said. “Hopefully we’ll have a good showing at nationals.”

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