Harvard Captures Early Spring Tournament

Looking to continue its success after a strong fall season, the Harvard sailing team easily cruised to its first victory of the spring season this past weekend in Bristol, R.I., winning 16 out of 18 races on its way to capturing the Sharpe Trophy.

After finishing the fall season as the top team in New England, the Crimson’s ranking will allow the team to enter into the higher-tier regattas later in the season. But for now, the Harvard sailors were more than ready to hit the water and race in the windy conditions of Bristol.

Although the fall season is more focused on fleet racing relative to the spring, which centers more on team racing, the success from the fall provided the Crimson with the right reputation necessary to compete in the more competitive regattas.

Teams from Harvard, Roger Williams, MIT, Brown, Boston College, and Yale made up the field at the Sharpe Trophy Team Race.

Seniors Alan Palmer and Teddy Himler and junior Brendan Kopp represented the Crimson as skippers at this second-tier six-team event, while seniors John Stokes and Meghan Wareham and sophomore Alma Lafler sailed as crews.

Despite Harvard’s success at the Sharpe Invitational—the team dropped only two races over the course of two days—the sailors viewed the event as a way to gain experience working as a team in the windy and chilly weather more than anything else.

“It was very much getting your feet wet for the first time. It was good to get out there and practice,” Wareham said. “It was a second-tier regatta. We weren’t really competing against the more elite competition.”

“Only we and MIT sent our best teams,” Himler added. “This regatta was about honing our skills and about making the right plays in the right situations. It was very blustery out there. We know that in the next month, we’re not going to see conditions as rough as [Sunday], but we know we can handle them.”

On Saturday, the Crimson competed in 10 races and dropped only one, a close contest to the Engineers.

“The races that were in doubt were more helpful because we needed to practice maneuvers, like against Roger Williams, where we weren’t in a stable winning combination [like first and second place],” Palmer said.

The next day, the team, now 9-1 and two races ahead of the second-place Hawks, was determined to hold its lead.

But Harvard’s standing did not alter the team’s tactics.

“I don’t think it changed the way we sail. We were certainly confident, which is an asset out on the water,” Himler said. “We just needed to stick to the fundamentals. We were all psyched to go back and continue that lead, and it took a little pressure off.”

The races on Sunday started with a round robin between each of the six teams. In the first five races, the Crimson only lost once, this time to the Bears, allowing them to enter in the final four with a 13-2 record.

In the final three races against RWU, Brown, and MIT, Harvard stuck to its fundamentals and did not lose a single race.

“On Sunday, we were able to get into a combination in a race that was good for us,” Palmer said. “Oftentimes, we were able to pass just by using our speed. We had some pretty good races with Roger Williams, but we had to make some plays when we were in a losing combination, and this weekend, we acted on those plays. For most of them, though, we finished first and second, so it was a pretty easy win.”

At the end of the day on Sunday, the Crimson won 16 of its races and lost only two over the course of the two-day tournament.

But the experience gained over the weekend was more important than the win.

“It was great to train in those kinds of conditions,” Himler said. “Looking forward, we’re going to do a very competitive regatta at St. Mary’s and Navy. We’re going in with a strong team, and hopefully we’ll continue to bring home the W’s.”