Sailing Finds Itself in the Middle of the Pack After Weekend Competitions

On the second weekend of competition for the Harvard sailing team, the group, participating in four events, continually placed in the middle of the pack. Ivy League rival No. 1 Yale, however, placed first in three of the four regattas. With winds hovering at about 8-12 knots, the weather made for a good racing weekend.

STU NELSON TROPHY

At the helm of FJs, Harvard won its best ranking of the weekend in the bi-divisional interconference regatta hosted by Connecticut College. The Crimson, placed eighth of 18 teams with a total score of 213.

Of the Ivy League teams present, Harvard placed behind Brown and Yale, which received first and third place, but edged out Dartmouth by seven points.

In Harvard’s A-Division, juniors skipper Taylor Ladd and crew Kirstin Anderson, posted a low score of 103 and secured a seventh place individual finish. In the B-Division, represented by freshman skipper Lucy Wilmot and co-captain crew Nomin-Erdene Jagdagdorj, the group finished with 110 points and ninth overall.

“Our main goal and focus by the end of the season is to qualify for the [Atlantic Coast Championships] and to just keep growing as a women’s team,” Ladd said. “Our women’s program is on the upswing after a few years of not doing as well as we would hope. We have a lot more women’s skippers this year and we’re really hoping to continue the momentum that we had from last year.”

CENTRAL SERIES TROPHY

Following last year’s first place finish at this race, the Crimson came into this meet hosted by Boston College to try to defend its title in the first Central Series of the season. Ultimately, Harvard finished ninth of the 17 schools at event.

Sailing for the Crimson in the A-Division were sophomore skipper Taylor Gavula and senior crew Emma Wheeler, who posted a score of 103.

The B-Division was represented by freshman skipper Jessica Williams and sophomore crew Divya Arya, who earned a score of 82. This younger group was fresh off of a third place overall and first place B-Division finish at last week’s Lark Invitational, which had helped the Crimson win gold there.

Harvard fished the meet with a total score of 185 points, 88 behind the first place finisher, Yale. Brown placed second with 130.

NEVINS TROPHY

With winds from 8-13 knots and ten races in each of the three divisions, the Saturday races hosted by Kings Point ended with Harvard in 12th place. Totaling 525 points in the tight race, the Crimson fell to Yale, which collected gold with 320 points, but beat out division rivals Dartmouth and Penn.

“The competition was very steep and the racing was extremely tight, making it so that even the smallest mistakes on the racecourse were felt in our scores,” sophomore skipper Jackson Wagner said. “The racing this weekend confirmed that we are a fast team, our boat speed was very strong, keeping us towards the top of the fleet in our cleaner races. Moving forward we need to work on fleet navigation, especially in condensed sections of the racecourse, to minimize fouling and positioning mistakes and keep our scores more consistently positive throughout the series.

The C-Division of the Harvard team, staffed by sophomore skipper Andrew Puopolo, posted the lowest squad score of 121, sixth place in his division. The A-Division of junior co-captain Nick Sertl and sophomore crew Christine Gosioco earned 225 points and the B-Division, Wagner and sophomore crew Catherine Tang, collected 179 of their own.

HATCH BROWN TROPHY

Racing in the tri-divisional inter-conference Hatch Brown Trophy hosted by MIT, Harvard finished tenth out of a total of 19 teams. Sailing in NC Fireflies, the team tallied a total score 515 points and was beat out by two other Ivy League rivals, the Bulldogs and Dartmouth, which placed first and second, respectively.

Of Harvard’s three divisions, the C-Division, staffed by sophomore skipper Nicholas Karnovsky and sophomore crew Alejandra Resendiz, posted the best score of the group with a 138. In the A, sophomore skipper Nicholas DiGiovanni and senior crew Julia Lord, and B, junior skipper Dylan Farrell and senior crew Priscilla Russo, Divisions earned 186 and 191, respectively.

“I think we all felt really good about the regatta as a whole,” Ladd said. “We learned a lot throughout the weekend and definitely got better at the things we were aiming to work on and came out feeling good about our result and even better about our results in the future.”