Crimson Achieves Mixed Success

Sunday always brings a fresh start.

For both the co-ed and women’s Harvard sailing teams, a disappointing Saturday led to a chance for redemption on Sunday. Both squads improved on the regatta’s second day to salvage 12th-place finishes.

The co-ed team sailed at the Southern New England Team Race in New London, Conn. After a poor showing on the first day landed the Crimson in the consolation fleet, the squad rallied for a second-place finish in the consolation round for 12th overall.

Meanwhile, the women traveled to the Dellenbaugh Women’s Trophy in Providence, R.I., where they also got off to a rough start. Led by a strong second-day showing from the A-division crew of junior skipper and captain Megan Watson and crew Meghan Wareham, Harvard placed 12th in the 18-team field.

The Crimson also left a squad in Boston to compete in the Central Series Two regatta at Boston College. The team took ninth.

DELLENBAUGH WOMEN’S TROPHY

A combination of bad luck and bad weather plagued the women’s team.

“It was really, really windy,” Watson said. “We had some bad luck and we made some mistakes.”

Once again, Harvard’s small size made it tough to sail through heavy winds. But that wasn’t the Crimson’s only disadvantage.

“The first race we were actually winning until someone capsized on top of us,” Watson said.

But on Sunday, things finally started to go Harvard’s way.

Watson and Wareham opened the competition with two second-place finishes en route to claiming seventh in the A division.

“Meghan and I were very excited, especially at our ability to put a bad day behind us and start fresh,” Watson said.

Sophomore Liz Powers skippered the B-division boat to 14th-place. Classmate Ali Beyer served as her crew on Saturday, while freshman Quincy Bock crewed on Sunday. The B-division tandem recorded four top-10 finishes on the weekend.

As a team, the Crimson placed 12th. St. Mary’s was the regatta’s convincing winner.

The Harvard women are now looking to their upcoming national qualifiers and will be altering their practices in preparation.

“We have one regatta left before qualifiers, and since only the top five New England teams qualify for nationals, we have to improve upon this week if we want to qualify,” Watson said.

SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND TEAM RACE

The Crimson’s co-ed team had to battle inexperience in the spring’s first team-racing event. In team racing, rather than having one boat from each school competing in different divisions, each school fields several boats in head-to-head competition.

With just two seniors, Harvard struggled in Saturday’s qualifying rounds.

“Kyle [Kovacs] and I are the only seniors, and we’re the only ones who have significant team racing experience,” senior Elyse Dolbec said. “The other people on our team—it’s their first year doing it on the competitive college level.”

The Crimson placed outside of the top five in its qualifying round, so on Sunday, it appeared at the consolation finals.

But Harvard thrived on Sunday, going 5-2 in its races to place second in its fleet, behind 6-1 Stanford. That finish was good enough for 12th overall.

St. Mary’s won the championship final.

The Crimson and Vermont had an identical record on the day, but since Harvard was victorious in that head-to-head competition, it claimed second place.

Sunday’s races were also marked with many protests and challenges, leading to a shakeup in the standings that altered the final position of four teams.

“There’s a lot of potential for the team. We had some really good races this weekend,” Dolbec said. “There were some unforced errors that brought us down, and we ended up in the silver fleet instead of the gold fleet. It was a little disappointing, but it allowed us to work on fundamentals and get in a lot of good races.”

CENTRAL SERIES TWO

Four Harvard sailors stayed in Boston this weekend to compete in the Central Series Two regatta.

Sophomore skipper Alex Bick and freshman crew Colin Santangelo sailed to 12th in the A division, while a pair of freshmen led the B-division boat to sixth place.

The team finished ninth overall. Boston College was the regatta’s overall winner.

—Staff writer Kate Leist can be reached at kleist@fas.harvard.edu.