Harvard Twice Victorious on Local Waters

There is an old saying: two heads are better than one.

While that may not always be true, it is definite that two regatta victories are also better than one, and that is exactly what the Harvard sailing team picked up this weekend.

The Harvard coed team won the Erin Schell Trophy at MIT on Sunday, and the Crimson women also won the Victorian Coffee Urn, which Harvard hosted.

The coed team won the Schell Trophy with 208 points, besting second place Brown by 32 points. The Crimson was led by its B division team of sophomores Kyle Kovacs and Elyse Dolbec, who were able to capture the division with considerable ease, winning with 63 points, 42 ahead of second-place Boston College.

“I have not seen them sail better,” junior Clay Johnson said. “To win a regatta by forty points is incredible.”

Kovacs and Dolbec won nine of their eighteen races and finished second three times.

“It felt amazing to win,” Dolbec said. “I was so happy. I felt so proud for Kyle.”

The A division team, consisting of Johnson and fellow junior Kristen Lynch, also put in a strong performance, with seven top five finishes, including one victory.

The race took place over two days, subjecting the sailors to two very different environments.

“Saturday was miserable,” Dolbec said. “There was not much wind, and it started to snow heavily. I had trouble keeping my eyes open, the snow kept getting in them.

The regatta would come down to the last race on Sunday, a day where the weather was much improved compared to Saturday, with sunshine and temperatures in the sixties.

“The Charles is a very fickle venue,” Johnson said. “It was definitely not over until the end. Before the last race, Kyle and I went over strategy.”

The tactics discussion would pay off, as both boats finished in front of top contender Brown, clinching the win.

While the coed team was busy winning at MIT, 300 yards away at Harvard, the Crimson women emerged victorious in a tightly contested competition, finishing with 168 points, while second place College of Charleston finished with 186.

Just as it had at the Schell Trophy, Harvard’s B division team captured its division title. Seniors Jessica Baker and Ruth Schlitz won three races out of 17, including two of the final three, to finish with 75 points, eighteen ahead of second place Charleston.

“I haven’t won a division before,” Baker said. “It was great. There were a lot of good competitors [at the race].”

Those eighteen points would turn out to be the margin of victory, as the A division team, consisting of captain Sloan Devlin and junior Christina Dahlman, battled Charleston to a second place tie.

Both the Cougars and the Crimson finished with 93 points in the A division, but the Harvard emerged victorious, thanks to its edge in the B division. Harvard was also aided by the strange New England weather.

“The conditions were in our favor,” Baker said. “The winds were very shifty. Most schools don’t get a chance to practice in those conditions.”

The two regattas were only half of the events the sailing team participated in over the weekend. The Crimson’s boat finished tenth at the ICSA Sloop National Championships in Richland, Michigan. Harvard also competed in Rhode Island in the Nickerson Trophy, the New England freshman championship, where it finished sixth.

By winning the Schell Trophy, the coed team was able to qualify for the Atlantic Coast Championship in Maryland two weekends from now. The women’s team has already qualified for their ACC next week at Coast Guard. The championship marks the end of the double-handed events season.

“We are psyched for the Atlantic Coast championships after this win,” Johnson said. “We are ready to go down and compete.”