SEASON RECAP: Sailing

This was supposed to be a rebuilding year for the Harvard sailing team. Graduation was supposed to have taken its toll, loosening the Crimson’s iron grip on the Fowle Trophy, the honor given to the best all-around squad in the nation—the award Harvard had won the past four years.

“I think at a national level it’s anyone’s game this year. Among all the teams in the country, there actually isn’t a dominant team this year,” captain Laura Schubert had said.

The Crimson wasn’t supposed to cruise into a national title by a comfortable margin—but it did.

Harvard began a week of ICSA championship regattas by winning the ICSA women’s dinghy championships in Austin, Tex., by a score of 160 to runner-up College of Charleston’s 182.

“We came in with higher expectations,” junior Sloan Devlin said. “All year we knew we could do it. It was just a matter of putting scores together.”

Despite potentially unfavorable conditions—like summer storms—Harvard finished second in both A and B divisions, which were skippered by senior Genny Tulloch and Devlin, respectively.

The co-ed team and fleet-racing championship regattas had not taken place as of press time, but the victory in the women’s regatta served to underscore the Crimson’s resilience in the face of tribulation.

Harvard began the season without the two All-Americans lost to graduation—including the collegiate men’s Sailor of the Year—but it hardly left the limelight. In mere months, Devlin and sophomore Clay Johnson took second in the individual ICSA singlehanded national championships, while Tulloch—last year’s collegiate women’s Sailor of the Year—and freshman Kyle Kovacs each finished fourth.

Their return to fleet racing broke the team out of fall doldrums in time for top finishes in the Atlantic Coast Championships—second for the men, and, thanks in part to poor travel luck, sixth for the women.

Harvard’s home waters, the Lower Basin of the Charles, froze over during holidays and didn’t thaw until late, putting the Crimson at a disadvantage by inhibiting practice.

While the effects manifested themselves in a sluggish start, in the long term it didn’t seem to matter. Harvard took a couple weeks to shake off dry-season rust before winning the Truxtun Umstead, a major intersectional regatta, securing a berth in the 2006 New England Sloops Championships and taking the top co-ed ranking in the nation.

“When you come down there and win the regatta, it demonstrates that we’re a force to be reckoned with,” Johnson said.

It also didn’t hurt that they had perhaps their top skipper back, as junior and next year’s captain Vincent Porter returned from a semester abroad to buoy the team’s finishes.

“We all know Vince is a great sailor,” Johnson said. “He’s definitely carried the team before.”

Until late April, weekend regattas had been mere practice, but when the team faced down a string of regional qualifiers, it didn’t have room for inconsistency. Nor, for that matter, did the team demonstrate that it wasn’t up to the task. In a flurry of top finishes, Harvard qualified for all three national championship regattas, as the women’s team won the New England fleet-racing championship and the co-eds finished second in fleet racing and third in team racing. Regional honors followed almost immediately, as the team accrued a total of six All-New England mentions, four on the women’s team and two on the co-ed.

Then Harvard turned its attention to what mattered most—what happens over 10 days on a lake in Texas.

The co-eds’ finishes cannot be predicated on that of the women’s team. For the co-eds, this is indeed more of a rebuilding year—but one in which the team has already demonstrated the ability to rise to meet the demands of necessity.

Nor has the team always minded playing the part of the underdog this season.

“We’re content with [the scores],” Johnson said after the team’s disappointing sixth-place finish in the Admiral’s Cup, an April intersectional. “It’s nice to give the other teams a little false sense of security to make them think they’re better than us.”

“Rebuilding year” is relative when used to describe the top program in the country for four years running.

“We’re really excited that we made all three,” Schubert said. “We’re going to practice all this month, and if we’re lucky, we’re going to see that payout in Austin...Watch out for us in [there].”

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