College Nationals: Top 18 schools advance to Coed Championship

St. Mary’s City, MD (June 4, 2014) – Today was the second and final day of the Semi-Finals for the Gill Coed National Championship, hosted by St. Mary’s College of Maryland. The top 36 college sailing teams in the nation competed on the St. Mary’s River for 18 spots in the championship finals, which begin tomorrow, Thursday, June 5.

The 36 teams were divided into two fleets of 18 teams, Western and Eastern Semi-Final groups, with the top nine from each fleet advancing to compete in the finals.

Today the Eastern fleet sailed in 420s and the Western fleet sailed in FJs. This morning, the A-divisions sailed on windward leeward four leg courses and the B-divisions sailed on inner and outer trapezoid courses. This afternoon all of the 420s sailed on the outer trapezoid course and all of the FJs sailed on the inner trapezoid course.

Racing began at 9:30 this morning. The temperature was in the high 70s and the winds were puffy and shifty from the northwest at about 5-10 knots. The winds slowly died around 12:30 p.m. and after completing two races in each division in each fleet, the sailors waited on shore for the wind to fill in.

By around 3 p.m. the sailors were back on the course to start racing. A southerly breeze around 5-7 knots filled in and remained pretty steady until around 4:15 p.m., when it lightened up again and became patchy on the race course. The sailors started to rotate boats on the water rather than from the dock to try and squeeze in as many races as possible.

The deadline for racing today was 5 p.m., so the race officials got in as much racing as the conditions would allow. The Eastern Semi-Final completed four races today in A-division and B-division for a total of six races for the event. The Western Semi-Final completed three races today in A-division and B-division for a total of five races for the event.

Yale University continued to dominate in the racing today and won the Western fleet. They did not place out of the top four in either division during the semi-finals. The light and patchy conditions were something that the sailors were prepared for.

“We like this stuff,” says Bill Healy, assistant coach for Yale. “We have a great spot to practice in any conditions [at Yale]. We tucked in close to shore to prepare,” Healy says.

Tomorrow the finals event begins and Healy says that Yale’s head coach, Zach Leonard, “Has done a great job getting everyone psyched up for this long event. We are ready to go.”

Sailing for Yale is: Graham Landy ’15 with Katherine Gaumond ’15 in A-division and Ian Barrows ’17 with Meredith Megarry ’17 and Marlena Fauer ’14 in B-division.

Notable today in the Western fleet was Old Dominion University who moved up from sixth place yesterday to second place today. Sailing for Old Dominion is: Esteban Forrer ’16 with Julia Wiesner ’14 in A-division and Andrea Luna ’15 with Chloe Constants ’14 in B-division.

Connecticut College overtook Georgetown University today and won the Eastern fleet. They moved up from second place yesterday, one point behind Georgetown, to one point ahead of them today. Sailing for Connecticut College is: Kevin Martland ’14 with Lea Bushnell ’15 in A-division and IG Schottlaender ’14 with Kim Bolick ’15 in B-division.

“It was hard to be consistent today,” says Mike Callahan, head coach for Georgetown. “Even the best sailors had trouble,” he says. Despite dropping to second place by just one point today, Callahan says their focus is on the next two days of racing.

“We are disappointed we did not win this regatta, but we will take lessons from it and focus on the finals – we will be racing in the hardest fleet of the year tomorrow with the top 18 teams in the nation,” says Callahan.

Sailing for Georgetown is: Nevin Snow ’16 with Katia DaSilva ’15 in A-division and Alex Post ’15 with Bettina Redway ’16 in B-division.

The US Sailing Grit Award is awarded to the teams who qualified for the finals in ninth place in each semi-final fleet; the recipients today were the University of Wisconsin at Madison and Boston College.

The scoreboard is wiped clean for the Gill Coed National Championship Finals tomorrow. The first warning for racing is at 9:30 a.m. The top 18 teams will be competing for the national title and the Henry A. Morss Memorial Trophy over the next two days.

Final Nine Teams Eastern Semi-Final:
1. Connecticut College, 48
2. Georgetown University, 49
3. College of Charleston, 64
4. Stanford University, 73
5. U.S. Naval Academy, 73
6. Dartmouth College, 74
7. Tufts University, 78
8. U.S. Coast Guard Academy, 80
9. University of Wisconsin, 105
Full results

Final Nine Teams Western Semi-Final:
1. Yale University, 19
2. Old Dominion University, 54
3. Bowdoin College, 54
4. St. Mary’s College of Maryland, 55
5. University of Hawaii, 60
6. University of South Florida, 63
7. Harvard University, 68
8. Brown University, 68
9. Boston College, 75
Full results

Coed Championship website: 2014nationals.collegesailing.org/gill-coed-championship

Report by event media. Photo by Brian Schneider.

Background: The fall and spring seasons of college racing focuses on six National Championships. In the Fall season were the Match Race Nationals and Men’s and Women’s Singlehanded Nationals. The Spring season closes out with the ICSA/Sperry Women’s Nationals (May 27-30), College Sailing/APS Team Race Championship (May 31-June 2), and the College Sailing/Gill Coed Championship (June 3-6). Nationals website: http://2014nationals.collegesailing.org