College Sailing: Fall Season Update

Chris Klevan provides this week’s update on activity in the New England and Midwest conferences.

The first two weeks of the 2017 Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association (ICSA) Sailing Season are in the books. The effective season opener for the Atlantic Coast teams is the Henry A. Anderson Trophy hosted by Yale University on the Long Island Sound. This was the 43rd installment of the trophy and results, despite coming early in the fall season helps us discern what is up on the East Coast, especially in New England.

This year, The Boston University Terriers won the event with 169 points after 16 races in each division. The B-Division boat, Robby Gearon (‘19) and Lexi Pline (‘19), pushed the Terriers ahead of Yale, who led throughout the day on Saturday. BU ground the Bulldogs down, passing them easily Sunday and maintaining the lead throughout the day. The BU veteran boat of Ravi Parent (‘18) and Emily Croteau (‘19) finished 3rd in A-Division and strung together ten straight top-10 finishes in the middle of the event to set the tone of BU”s comeback. Such a consistent scoreline, coupled with a standout performance in B-Division is what wins regattas.

College Sailor of the Year hopeful Nicholas Baird (‘19), sailing with Graceann Nicolosi (‘20), started their campaign off strong with a decisive win in A-Division. They finished the event with 73 points through 16 races and defeated second place Matthew Kaplan (‘19) and Louisa Lindgren (‘19) of Bowdoin by 30 points.

Despite the impressive performance from BU’s B-Division tandem, the division was won by Dane Byerly (‘20) and Lydia McPherson-Shambarger of St. Mary’s College of Maryland. The young Seahawk team won the division with an impressive 59 points over the 16 race event.

Though the Henry A. Anderson Trophy served as the East Coast Interconference opener, it was not the only major regatta of the weekend.

University of Wisconsin Milwaukee won the Fall Fury hosted by University of Wisconsin, host of the 2010 ICSA College National Championship. The Panthers won the event with an impressive 54 points after 24 races, winning each division. Parker Trempton (‘18) and Brett Hutchinson (‘19) narrowly took home the victory in A-Division, 36 points. However, Jack Behrend (‘20) and Susie Voltz (‘19) dominated the B-Division, totaling 18 points in 12 races, winning all but 2 races sailed.

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