Sailing Finishes Third Weekend in Middle of Pack

On the third weekend of competition for the Harvard sailing team, the Crimson continually placed around the middle of the pack in four events. Ivy League rival Yale placed ahead of Harvard in each event, even finishing first in one of the regattas. Despite placing lower its rival, the Crimson says it came away with many positives from the weekend.

“This was our first weekend this fall with heavy breeze and very powered-up boats,” junior crew Kevin Coakley said. “Getting experience in those conditions will be helpful in coming weeks and allowed us to showcase our versatility. We have a young team and have a considerable amount of work to do before the fall championships, but weekends like this one are encouraging.”

NEW ENGLAND SINGLEHANDED CHAMPIONSHIPS

Racing in lasers at the New England Intercollegiate Sailing Association Conference Championships hosted by Connecticut College, Harvard looked to replicate its success from a year ago.

In 2015, then-sophomore Juan Carlos Perdomo won the men’s championship by scoring 65 points, 10 points ahead of his nearest competitor. On the women’s side, then-sophomore Taylor Ladd earned a fifth-place finish after scoring 40 points.

The top five finishers in the men and women’s competitions qualify for nationals, meaning Perdomo and Ladd both qualified for the big stage with their performances last season.

This time around, in the men’s competition, sophomore skipper Andrew Puopolo finished 13th out of 23 competitors, scoring 180 points.

“It was a pretty tough event; we were sailing in lasers which aren’t sailed too often in college sailing,” Puopolo said. “I thought it was a pretty tough event against some really good people from around New England. I didn’t do as well as I probably would have liked, but it was definitely a good learning experience for next year and going forward.”

Tufts’s Alp Rodopman won the competition with a score of 44. The Yale duo of Nicholas Baird and Malcolm Lamphere, Boston College’s Scott Rasmussen, and Roger Williams’s Martim Anderson rounded out the top five and thus qualified for nationals.

In the women’s competition, which featured 15 competitors, freshman skippers Sophia Marie Mascia and Jessica Williams finished eighth and 13th with scores of 97 and 133, respectively, racing radials. Boston College’s Erika Reineke won the event with a score of 28, beating out her nearest competitor by 23. Brown’s Lindsey Baab, Coast Guard’s Dana Rohde, BC’s Isabella Loosbrock, and Yale’s Louisa Nordstrom also qualified for nationals.

PROFESSOR STEDMAN HOOD TROPHY

In the 34th annual running of the interconference Hood Trophy regatta hosted by Tufts University, the Crimson recorded its best finish of the weekend, coming in sixth out of 19 teams with a total score of 195.

Of the Ivy league teams present, Harvard placed behind Yale, who finished fourth with 180 points, but edged out Dartmouth, Brown, and Cornell by 16, 98, and 126 points, respectively.

In the Crimson’s A division, swapping crew duties for junior co-captain Nick Sertl, Coakley and sophomore crew Christine Gosioco posted a score of 101, finishing sixth. In the B division, represented by sophomores Jackson Wagner and Catherine Tang on Saturday and sophomore skipper Nick DiGiovanni and senior crew Julia Lord on Sunday, Harvard posted a score of 94 and also finishing sixth.

AMANDA TROPHY

At the helm of FJs, the Crimson finished 12th out of 15 in the in-conference regatta hosted by Roger Williams University. Harvard was edged out by fellow Ivy league competitors Brown, Dartmouth, and champion Yale by 16, 42, and 85 points, respectively.

Freshman skipper Lucy Wilmot and sophomore crew Divya Arya represented the Crimson in the A division, posting 87 points. The B team, composed of skipper Catherine Kerner and sophomore crew Alejandra Resendiz, logged a score of 80.

CHRIS LODER TROPHY

For the Chris Loder Trophy, hosted by MIT, sailors raced in 420s along the Charles River Basin. After not competing in the event last year, Harvard finished 9th in an 18-team pack this year with 194 points after losing a tiebreaker to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy.

In the A division, sophomore skipper Nick Karnovsky and sophomore crew Lena Episalla finished fourth with a low score of 79. In the B division, skipper Victoria Marquez and senior crew Cara Kennedy Cuomo had a bit more trouble, finishing with a score of 115.

Tufts won the event with 123 points. Ivy leaguers Yale and Dartmouth finished second and fourth with 130 and 158 points, respectively. Last year’s champion Boston University finished seventh with 185 points.