Women's Sailing Brings Home National Championship

For the Harvard women’s sailing team, the national championship was 33 years in the making.

The Crimson won the ICSA/Vanguard women’s dinghy championship Friday, bringing the national title—Harvard’s fifth—back to Cambridge for the first time since 1972.

The Crimson finished with a total of 160 points, putting it comfortably ahead of runner-up College of Charleston, which finished with 182.

Harvard stayed in position through the first day of sailing, which it ended just behind the Cougars, but on Thursday, the Crimson made its move. Harvard’s A-division, skippered by senior Genny Tulloch with sophomore Emily Simon at crew, blew by the competition—including Old Dominion’s Anna Tunnicliffe, the most dominant figure in college sailing—for first.

The Crimson sailed conservatively in Friday’s final set, preserving the championship but dropping both boats into second place in their respective divisions.

Between the A-division and the B-division, which was skippered by junior captain Sloan Devlin with sophomore Christina Dahlman at crew, Harvard totaled six race wins. The foundation of the championship win, however, was consistency, as neither division finished out of the top five more than four times in 14 races.

Storms on Lake Travis, outside Austin, Tex., dealt racers choppy waters and strong—but, to the Crimson’s advantage, shifty—breezes.

Yet regardless of the compass direction in which the wind was gusting, the breezes ultimately blew Harvard’s way.

The Crimson left its New England competition in its wake. Dartmouth finished sixth with 209 points and Yale totaled 215 points for eighth place.

Harvard finished second in the 2004 championships, behind Yale, and eighth in 2003.