Sailing Wins Trophy at MIT

There comes a time in every season when a team is forced to make some adjustments when faced with adversity. For the Harvard sailing team, that time is now. Heading into this past weekend without the services of one of its top skippers, junior Teddy Himler, who recently broke his hand, the Crimson tweaked its game plan, competed against some of the region’s top competition, and came away with some encouraging results.

“Not having Teddy obviously hurts us,” junior skipper Colin Santangelo said, “but we performed well this weekend without him. When he comes back in a couple of weeks, we should be able to sail even better heading into the championship portion of our season.”

Harvard’s top sailors competed this weekend at the 29th Marchiando and 50th Friis Trophies Team Races and came away victors of the second fleet of racing, or in ninth position overall. The Crimson also sent a contingent to the Longfellow Bridge Invitational, the fourth installment of the Central Series this spring season, and finished sixth out of 16 teams.

“Everything is coming together nicely as our season really gets going,” sophomore skipper Emily Lambert said. “The team is performing well as we enter the last month and a half of our schedule.”

29TH MARCHIANDO & 50TH FRIIS TROPHIES TEAM RACE

The top squad of Harvard sailors rebounded from a poor performance on Saturday to win 14 of its 15 races in Sunday’s round robins and claim the Lynne Marchiando Trophy in team racing hosted by MIT on the Charles River.

The Crimson finished Saturday’s two round robins with a record of 5-7 overall, which left it in fifth place in its division. The top four teams from each of the two divisions went on to sail for the Friis Trophy at Tufts on Sunday, where the host Jumbos would eventually come away victorious.

“Unfortunately, we were not able to sail well enough on Saturday to make it to the Friis Trophy competition on Sunday,” Lambert said. “It was really windy on Saturday, and we struggled with some of our boat handling. However, we were able to rebound on Sunday, when it was less windy, and take better advantage of some of our team-racing moves.”

On Sunday, Harvard posted a 14-1 record, as the Crimson swept Boston University, Connecticut College, Salve Regina, and Vermont, and lost only one of three races to Dartmouth.

Junior captain Alan Palmer and classmate John Stokes, along with Lambert, skippered for Harvard on the weekend. Seniors Michelle Konstadt and Winston Yan, junior Meghan Wareham, and sophomore Alex Jumper split crewing duties on Saturday, as Konstadt, junior Quincy Bock, and freshman Alma Lafler were the Crimson’s crews on Sunday.

LONGFELLOW BRIDGE INVITATIONAL / CENTRAL SERIES FOUR

Harvard had another squad compete locally at the Longfellow Bridge Invitational as part of the Central Series schedule of racing on the Charles River. Competing in a field of 16 schools, the Crimson came away with a sixth-place team finish overall.

In the A division of competition, Santangelo skippered the team to a sixth-place effort, as freshmen Sam Millham and Jin Zang split crewing duties.

“The wind was very variable out there,” Santangelo said. “It ranged from five to 27 miles per hour and was very shifty, which led to a lot of capsizes and meant difficult racing.”

In the B division, freshman skipper Jason Michas had Harvard in first after Day One, but the Crimson finished the weekend in seventh overall in the division.

“The regatta went pretty well for us,” Santangelo said. “I feel that as the team comes together over the next couple of weeks and we enter the home stretch of our schedule, there will not be many teams in the nation that can beat us.”

—Staff writer Thomas D. Hutchison can be reached at tdhutch@fas.harvard.edu.