Sailing Competes in Pair of Regattas

It was a busy weekend for Harvard’s co-ed sailing team this weekend, as the squad was split for two different regattas on the East Coast.

The Crimson paired with MIT to host the 84th Boston Dinghy Club Challenge Cup on the Charles on Saturday and Sunday, while some members of the Harvard team traveled further south to compete in the 73rd Owen, Mosbacher & Knapp Trophy, which was hosted by Navy. The Crimson came in seventh place in both regattas.

“We entered the weekend with some trepidation because we hadn't done well the weekend before,” Harvard coach Michael O’Connor said.

After the weekend, the Crimson sits ranked as No. 15 for co-ed collegiate sailing and remains unranked in the women’s division.

84th BOSTON DINGHY CLUB CHALLENGE CUP

Harvard claimed seventh place out of the 17 teams racing at the 84th Boston Dinghy Club Challenge Cup, while Boston College, MIT and Brown took the top three spots, respectively.

The first day of competition opened Saturday with gusts of wind coming in as high as 30 knots. Several capsizes occurred in the 12 races, as the sailors tried maneuvering the course as best as they could in fireflies, the type of boat sailing in the majority of the races.

O’Connor selected sophomore Brian Drumm and freshman Jacob Bradt to compete in what he classified as a very competitive A-division. The duo took 8th place with 149 points.

“We struggled a little bit early on with the firefly, which, at least in my boat, we weren’t too familiar with,” Bradt said. “We struggled with that, especially with the windy conditions.”

The Crimson took fifth place in the next two divisions with 115 points from sophomore Michael Drumm and junior Luke O'Connor in B division on Saturday and 108 points from freshman Marek Zaleski and junior Isabel Ruane on Sunday.

“[Drumm] teamed up with heavy air specialist, Luke O'Connor, for some great results in the big breeze on Saturday,” O’Connor said.

The squad also participated in races with FJs at the regatta.

“Once we rotated [to] boats we were more comfortable with, even with the more heavy wind conditions, we felt like we were hanging with a lot of competitive boats and some really good teams,” Bradt said.

Sunshine came through on Sunday for the last five races and winds were kept under 10 knots. Harvard finished off with 372 points, 64 points less than Ivy rival Yale.

73rd OWEN, MOSBACHER & KNAPP TROPHY

Competing in one less division than the regatta up north, the Crimson finished in seventh place out of 19 teams that raced on Maryland’s Severn River.

The first day of competition featured favorable sailing conditions, as 12 races were conducted in almost a full day of sunshine and the winds around 12 knots. Luck ran out by Sunday for the sailors, however, as grey skies and unpleasant conditions required the racers to be relocated to the Annapolis Harbor, where five more races got in before the day was called for sailing.

With a total of 165 points, Yale took first place. Connecticut College and St. Mary’s of Maryland followed right behind with 210 and 233, respectively.

Harvard finished out the weekend with 275 points. In Division A, sophomore Gram Slattery and senior Jinyan Zang took 10th place with 165 points. In Division B, the freshmen duo of Andrew Mollerus and Sydney Karnovsky ranked third with 110 points, behind the Bulldogs and Camels.

“This weekend, we showed a lot of improvement from where we were earlier this spring season, [and] definitely from where we were at the beginning and even the end of last fall,” Bradt said.

The Crimson spent the beginning of spring break in mid-Atlantic waters training for the rest of the season in warmer conditions.

“We were really just working on fundamentals,” Bradt said. “[The training] gave us the opportunity to isolate things that each particular boat had to work on and it gave us a lot more time to focus on individual things which we can improve on.”

Despite expressing his happiness with how the team performed over the weekend, Bradt believes there is still more that can be worked on in regard to the squad’s mental preparation and outlook.

“One of the big things about college sailing, especially at the higher level, is having the correct mindset and intensity,” he said. “I think we need to show a little bit more maturity in that regard, but that’s something that we showed some improvement on this weekend.”