Sailing's Strategy Leads To Berth in 2006 Sloops

This weekend, the No. 1 Harvard co-ed sailing team planned a few tacks ahead.

The Crimson managed a middling finish in a competitive intersectional but qualified for next year’s New England Sloop Championship with a win in the New England Sloop Series 3 on Sunday.

Manning the sloop regatta necessitated pulling Harvard’s two most capable skippers from the middle of team racing, but the exigencies of qualifying for the sloop championship offset a substandard overall showing in team racing with mere weeks before New England Team Race Championships.

NEW ENGLAND SLOOP SERIES 3

Steady breezes filled the sails of the four-handed 44-class sloops as the Crimson won four of eight races in the single-day qualifier, held Sunday at the US Coast Guard Academy.

Junior captain Vincent Porter and sophomores Clay Johnson, Matt Knowles, and Robby McIntosh carried Harvard to the four wins and the overall victory.

Dartmouth posed the most tangible threat to the Crimson’s win, taking two races and posting three second-place finishes to tally 21 points to Harvard’s 18.

FERRARO TROPHY

The Crimson bought its success at the Coast Guard Academy by sacrificing the team’s results against a stacked field at the Ferraro Trophy Team Racing Intersectional, held Saturday and Sunday at Yale.

Harvard finished second of 11 teams in the first day of racing, but it then sent top team-racing skippers Porter and Johnson to Coast Guard for the sloops qualifier.

The team finished 5-4 overall, but only finishes within the top bracket of racing counted, leaving the Crimson with a 3-4 record for scoring purposes. Yale tied Dartmouth for first place, but the Bulldogs won based on head-to-head results.

In Saturday’s racing, Harvard had lost only to Yale to take second at day’s end.

“We were sailing our A-team for New Englands [on Saturday], and we did really well,” junior captain Sloan Devlin said.

The Crimson kept freshman skipper Kyle Kovacs from Saturday and added Devlin and senior Genny Tulloch for Sunday. Senior Laura Schubert and sophomores Emily Simon and Christina Dahlman crewed both days.

“We kind of got our butts kicked on Sunday,” Tulloch said. “We went into the weekend knowing that we weren’t going to do that well again not having them there on Sunday.”

To compound Harvard’s difficulties, the wind died on Sunday—but the transfer of Johnson and Porter signaled that the race was not the team’s top priority.

“It would normally be considered an important race, but it wasn’t for us because we didn’t have our top team there,” Tulloch said.

The regatta foreshadowed the New England Team Race championships, for which the Crimson won’t divide skippers with another regatta.

“Normally, we don’t sail 420s and we don’t sail on open water,” Devlin said. “It was important to get in some quality 420 time at the site, but it took some adjusting.”

METRO DIVISON SERIES 3

A regatta-packed weekend lent Harvard the chance delve into its roster, and the Crimson seventh of 12 on home waters.

Knowles and sophomore Samantha Fink finished second in the A-division, with one win. Freshmen Max Chalfin and Alicia Harley took ninth in the B-division, retiring from one race after the finish.

Tufts won the regatta, as its B-division won six of eight races.

PRESIDENT’S WOMEN’S TROPHY

The effects of shifts in the co-ed team’s lineup rippled into the No. 9 women’s team, which finished eighth of 12 teams in a weekend regatta on the Charles’ Lower Basin.

“We didn’t sail our absolute best,” senior Daphne Lyman said. “Some of the other teams—the top four or five—sent their best women’s skippers. I think we did okay, for the level of sailor that we sent.”

With Devlin and Tulloch gone, the Crimson put junior Jess Baker and freshman Elyse Dolbec at skipper and Lyman and sophomore Cassandra Niemi at crew.

Dolbec’s and Niemi’s B-division finished seventh, placing in the top nine in all but one race. The A-division finished tenth overall, as Dartmouth won the regatta overall.

The women’s team’s critical test will come in the New England Championships in two weekends, warming up with the Dellenbaugh Women’s Trophy at Brown on Saturday.

“We definitely think we can win it,” Lyman said. “There’s not really any doubt. There’s no need to prove ourselves.”

—Staff writer Samuel C. Scott can be reached at sscott@fas.harvard.edu.