College Sailing: Spring Season Update

With two weeks before College Conference Championships, Chris Klevan reports on a busy weekend of team and women’s events.

It is said that, compared to the rest of the world, there is nothing College Sailing does better than Team Racing. However, women’s sailing in the Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association (ICSA) may be at an all-time high.

College Sailing may never have been more littered with talented women’s sailors. Standing on the shoulders of the likes of Anna Tunnicliffe and Annie Haeger, women in College Sailing are raising the bar across all disciplines.

At the Duplin Women’s Team Race at Tufts University this past weekend, the #2 Yale Bulldogs took home the victory behind the effort of Katherine Knapp (‘18), Louisa Nordstrom (‘20), and Christine Klingler (‘20) as skipper and Claire Hubner (‘18), Graceann Nicolosi (‘20), and Kira Woods (‘19) in the crew role. This is especially notable because this victorious team was missing Casey Klingler, who is near the top of Yale’s team race depth chart and likely the best female team race skipper in the ICSA.

“Two women’s team racing events were scheduled; one at Harvard and the Duplin Trophy at Tufts,” said Tufts Head Coach, Ken Legler. “The early March event at Harvard was cancelled due to strong winter winds but the Duplin had decent conditions for late March. It’s clear women are team racing on their spring break trips and the Duplin validates that training they do with their “A” teams.

“Following the round-robin among ten teams a consolation round for the bottom four ensued,” continued Legler. “Even for places 7th through 10th, the team racing action was impressive. All the teams engaged in complex team racing plays.”

Yale finished with a 12-2 overall record while #8 Brown finished second at 11-3. The #4 Stanford Cardinal was third at 10-4. The #13 Dartmouth College women played spoiler late on Sunday with an exciting win over Brown, who was tied for the lead at the time.

The South Atlantic Women’s Regatta, the first conference qualifier we’ve seen, was held at the College Of Charleston. The one day event showed six races sailed in each division and a five point win by the home team, #6 Charleston Cougars, over the #19 University of South Florida Bulls.

Cougar Paris Henken (‘19) with Irene Abascal (‘17) and Kelly-Ann Arrindell (‘20) won A-Division with 13 points while Sarah Streater (‘18) with Mandi Dickie (‘18) and Tiffany Nicholson (‘17) won B-Division with 10 points. College of Charleston, South Florida, Eckerd, Jacksonville, and Clemson University are the first five teams to advance to the Women’s National Semifinals Regatta, to be held May 23-24 in Charleston, SC.

On the Co-ed front, the Jan T. Friis Trophy was sailed at the Coast Guard Academy. Featuring some of the top teams in the country, but due to marginal and inconsistent conditions throughout the weekend, spectators were forced to wait until the end of the day Sunday to witness the caliber of team racing advertised.

The #1 Yale University Bulldogs won the event decisively with a 14-0 overall record. As we have come to expect, the defending champion used a rotation of experienced skippers and crews. Ian Barrows (‘17), Malcom Lamphere (‘18), Nicholas Baird (‘19), and Mitchell Kiss (‘17) steered the boats while Chandler Gregoire (‘17), Clara Robertson (‘17) Nataylia Doris (‘17), and Isabelle Rossi De Leon (‘17) crewed by committee.

#11 Dartmouth College finished second overall with a 10-4 record and a young #6 Hobart and Williams Smith Colleges team finished third at 9-5.

The Admiral Moore Team Race at New York Maritime was particularly competitive, especially among Middle Atlantic Intercollegiate Sailing Association (MAISA) Conference teams as the venue will play host to the Prosser Trophy for their conference team race championship. Most of the MAISA team-race powerhouses were on display on the East River.

The #4 Navy Midshipmen stepped fully into the conversation of national contenders, boasting a 10-4 overall record and a 2-0 record over rival #2 Georgetown. This regatta proved that the Midshipmen are ready to claim the MAISA Team Race crown.

Part of a three-way tie for the lead at the event, Navy won the tiebreaker due to its record against Georgetown and a top-6 round win over the third placed, #12 Stanford Cardinal. Navy scored an impressive 4-1 record during the final-6 round robin.

“Tough fleet of competition at this year’s Admiral Moore since the Prosser will be hosted there in two weeks,” said Navy Head Coach, Ian Burman. “We stayed patient in the challenging conditions on Saturday when there was not much team racing to be had.”

Navy sailed skippers Peter Hogan (‘18), Pat Snow (‘17), and Gary Prieto (‘18) with crews Sarah Barkley (‘19), Mary Robertson (‘17), and Ana Mier (‘19).

The Aaron Szambecki Team Race is historically the top team race of any given weekend, but due to scheduling changes and a precedent in MAISA to sail at championship venues, the typically strong regatta featured younger squads from many of the teams.

ODU and Georgetown each finished with an 18-3 record, but ODU’s two wins over the Hoyas clinched the tiebreaker and the win for the Monarchs. This marks the first time in history the ODU team has won their staple team race event, one they have been running selflessly for years.

The ODU team for the weekend featured skippers Jeremy Herrin (‘18), James Jacob (‘18), Dreugh Phillips (‘20), Lee Dumaliang (‘17), and Jack Elkin (‘19) as well as crew Molly Sternberg (‘17), Carter Little (‘18), Dane Pedersen (‘19), Elleanor Wells (‘18), and Gabriel Smith (‘17).

Background: The Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association (ICSA) is the governing authority for sailing competition at colleges and universities throughout the United States and in some parts of Canada. There are seven Conferences that schedule and administer regattas within their established geographic regions, with ICSA hosting two national championships in the fall (singlehanded, match racing) and three national championships in the spring (team, women’s, coed). collegesailing.org