Harvard Squad Sails to Ninth-Place Finish

Coming off its first victory at the Professor Steadman Hood Trophy last week, the Harvard sailing team was unable to repeat its success at either the Danmark Trophy or the Charles River Invitational this past weekend.

With the women’s squad not competing in any events, the sailing team’s focus lay on the co-eds.

The squad travelled to New London, Conn., to compete at the Danmark Trophy—hosted by the Coast Guard Academy—and came away with a ninth-place finish out of the field of 20 schools.

The seventh-ranked Crimson also hosted the one-day Charles River Invitational, an in-conference regatta on Sunday, where it placed 14th out of 15 teams.

DANMARK TROPHY

The co-ed team opened the weekend on Saturday facing fair weather conditions. With enough wind and manageable current, six races were run in the morning.

The afternoon presented slightly more difficult conditions, with less wind and a strong flood tide, but both the A and B divisions were able to get in four races to close the day.

Co-captain Brendan Kopp, paired with sophomore crew Sarah Pierson, skippered for the A-Division team. The duo sailed to six top-10 finishes on Saturday and seven overall, ending the weekend in 10th place with 124 points.

“I personally had an okay day on Saturday,” Kopp said. “We were in fourth and pretty close to the second- and third-place teams, but I just had a terrible day on Sunday, and so we dropped because of that.”

“My crew, Sarah, sailed incredibly well also,” he continued. “She’s gotten better every week.”

For the B-Division team, senior Emily Lambert and freshman Reid Bergsund sailed for Harvard. The duo had five top-10 finishes of its own during the regatta and concluded the weekend with 132 points, good for 11th place in the field of 20.

The conditions on Sunday were more difficult, with a very light breeze only allowing for three races to be completed.

The day was highlighted by a first-place finish for the B-Division squad.

“Emily and Reid in B-Division sailed quite well,” Kopp said. “They won the race on the last day, and that was good … [because they raced] against tougher people than they have sailed against so far.”

Harvard finished the weekend with an overall score of 256 points, good for ninth place.

Hobart and William Smith Colleges finished first in the regatta with 153 points, followed by Tufts and Yale.

CHARLES RIVER INVITATIONAL

On Sunday, the Crimson hosted 14 other schools at the Charles River Invitational.

But even though Harvard was the host of the regatta, there was not much of a home-water advantage due to the difficult conditions and the relative inexperience of the various freshmen who competed.

“The conditions were pretty shifty,” sophomore Diana Powell said. “It was really windy sometimes, which was great, but we had [little] wind for a couple races. … The conditions slowly got worse. We were also sailing with a lot of freshmen who aren’t totally used to sailing on the Charles yet … so I’d say it’s not really much of an advantage being home.”

The squad encountered even more challenges in this regatta, facing off against very strong opposing teams, all with more experience than the young Crimson co-eds.

Freshmen Ansel Duff and Ashleigh Inglis sailed in the A-Division for Harvard, finishing the day’s five races with 63 points and a 14th-place finish. Powell and freshman skipper Kendra Norton ended the event in 13th place in the B-Division with 62 points.

“I thought that we did pretty well,” Powell said. “It was a lot of people’s first regattas, and definitely for their first regatta, they did a pretty good job.”

Vermont was the day’s champion with 31 points, surpassing Boston University and Bowdoin, which rounded out the top three.

Despite the less-than-stellar finish, the team was pleased with its growth and improvement.

“In practices we’ve really focused on getting good starts in races, and I feel like our starting tactics were really good in this regatta,” Powell said. “I feel like you get the best at sailing at the regattas, so the more experience people have the better our team’s going to be.”