Sailing Team Triumphs; Captures Two Trophies

The spectacular Crimson sailors successfully defended two major trophies in regattas on the Charles this weekend.

Yesterday the sailing team repelled a bid by the Coast Guard, last year's North American champion, to capture the Wood trophy; and on Saturday the Crimson swept to an easy win in the Greater Boston championship.

As expected, Harvard took an early lead in Saturday's encounter for the Oberg Trophy and piled up the point totals as the races progressed until the final race, the contest for point honors was the elusive property of the Crimson Carter Ford, Mike Horn and Dave Stookey.

In the finale, however, Bill Kelly of Babson, foredeck man on the Weatherly in the America's Cup race, pulled ahead of Horn by half a point. The solid Crimson depth--Horn with 50 points, Ford with 47 and Stookey with 46--could not overcome, though, and Harvard finished 18 1/2 points ahead of Babson and 20 1/2 on top of M.I.T.

The Crimson margin was so substantial by the final race, that Ford let his crewman, Dave Gantz, handle the tiller. Ed Lang and George Bartlett crewed for Harvard in "B" and "C" divisions.

yesterday, the Crimson team swamped the Coast Guard with an early lead and hung on during the last four races to win the Wood Trophy for the second year in a row. Winds were out of the northwest at only five to seven knots but constantly shifted through as much as 135 degrees.

Ford, Horn, Stookey, and Tony Davies shared both skippering and crewing duties, since the rules called for alternating co-skippers in each of two boats. For the first time in the tournament's history, all ten boats sailed in one mammoth division instead of the usual "A"-"B" split.

The Coast Guard had some trouble with the Tech Dinghies used in Sunday's races, and one cadet claimed that they are good "only for growing flowers and mixing cement." By the time the Cadets had the boats under control Sunday, the Crimson lead was unsurpassable.