Four Regattas Offer Varied Results

The Crimson spread itself out over four different regattas, battling a variety of conditions and coming away with solid results.

Both the co-eds and the women sailed in some of their most competitive races of the season, placing eighth and seventh at the Navy Fall Intersectional and the Yale Women’s Intersectional, respectively.

Meanwhile, the co-ed team sent squads to the Captain Hurst Bowl—where Harvard didn’t fare as well, mustering only a 17th-place finish in limited racing—and the local-level Tufts Invite, where the Crimson finished sixth.

“It’s exciting to show the depth in the team, that we’re able to travel to four different regattas in one weekend,” women’s captain Liz Powers said. “We’re excited to keep improving.”

YALE WOMEN’S INTERSECTIONAL

Bolstered by an outstanding performance in the B division, the Harvard women placed seventh in a field of 20 in New Haven, Conn. Skipper Powers and sophomore crew Marie Appel placed second in their grouping, notching seven top-five finishes in 10 races.

“We were really excited about our boat finish because it was one of the more competitive regattas of the season,” Powers said. “Marie and I had never sailed together until this season, and we’ve been really progressing quickly as a team, getting used to each other’s style and improving our boat handling.”

In the A division, sophomore skipper Emily Lambert and classmate and crew Alexandra Jumper weren’t quite as successful, placing 14th with three top-10 finishes.

“[There were] very tough conditions this weekend, because it was freezing, and today the sleet made the racing pretty challenging,” Powers said. “The wind shifts direction very often, so a lot of this weekend was working on focusing on predicting how the wind would shift.”

Powerhouse Yale won the regatta on its home waters, followed closely by Boston College.

NAVY FALL INTERSECTIONAL

The co-eds sent their top contingent down to Annapolis, Md. this weekend to compete at the Navy Fall Intersectional.

In a very competitive regatta, featuring 20 of the nation’s top teams and an expanded slate of four divisions of racing, Harvard held its own, placing eighth overall.

“It went pretty well,” junior captain Alan Palmer said. “It’s a weird regatta because there were four divisions—usually there’s just two…it shows we have some depth.”

Junior Teddy Himler, sailing in the singlehanded C division, posted the Crimson’s best result of the weekend, coming in fifth in his division.

But Himler and his teammates had to contend with rough conditions in the Maryland waters.

“It was pretty brutal—it was really cold, it was raining…it was pretty windy,” Palmer said. “But coming from the Northeast, that’s our strength.”

Palmer skippered the A division boat, sailing with junior crew Grace Charles on Saturday and senior crew Michelle Konstadt on Sunday.

Sophomore skipper Brendan Kopp was joined by crews Konstadt, freshman Ryan Byrne, and sophomore William White, who is also a Crimson newswriter, throughout the course of the weekend in the B division, while rookie skipper Jason Michas sailed singlehandedly for Harvard in the D division.

In one of the only intersectional regattas the Crimson will sail this fall, Harvard felt that it held its own against out-of-division competition while gaining valuable experience for the rest of the season. Each boat was able to complete 20 races on the weekend. Roger Williams won the regatta by more than 60 points.

CAPTAIN HURST BOWL

While the co-eds in Maryland got plenty of opportunities to hone their skills on the water, the Crimson contingent in Hanover, N.H. suffered from a lack of races in the Captain Hurst Bowl.

“The thing is, to constitute a regatta, you have to have three races in each division,” junior skipper Colin Santangelo said. “The difficult part of the regatta just really was that there was so little wind, so every time there was the smallest bit of wind where we could sail, [we did].”

Only four races were sailed in each division, and Harvard struggled in limited competition, placing 17th in a field of 20.

Santangelo and freshman crew Sarah McCuskee placed 17th in the A division, while the rookie pair of skipper Sam Millham and crew Alma Lafler rebounded from a tough Saturday to place 16th in the B division.

“The first day, B division waited for five hours, and then finally sailed one race that probably shouldn’t have been held,” Santangelo said. “The wind really died at the end, and there was one major uncalled-for wind shift that just threw everyone for a loop. Flip a coin, and if you chose the right side of the course, you won the race, and if you chose the left, you got dead last.”

But despite the conditions, the Crimson still came away from the regatta with some positive developments.

“It was a really fun weekend—we spent a lot of time hanging out with the other teams, building campfires and stuff,” Santangelo said. “It was a regatta that usually you get 10 or 12 races and you can figure out the shifts and work on your consistency and boat speed. This was a regatta…where a lot of [the races] were just luck of the draw.”

TUFTS INVITE

In a regatta in Medford, Mass., a quartet of Harvard sailors logged valuable time on the water against a field of 12 local teams, finishing sixth overall.

The freshman pair of skipper Nick Waldo and crew Lauren Tiedemann placed eighth in the A division, while a tandem of seniors, skipper Alex Bick and crew Ali Beyer, was third in the B division.

—Staff writer Kate Leist can be reached at kleist@fas.harvard.edu.