Top 18 at College Open Nationals

The conditions on the St. Mary’s River put 36 teams from across the country, and the race committee, through the wringer as the 2025 College Open Fleet Race Championship got underway on May 27-28 in St. Mary’s City, MD.

Racing Club Flying Juniors and 420s, teams were divided into two fleets for the Semifinal stage, with their mission to finish in the top 9 enduring light easterly winds on day one and torrential rain and a strong, shifty land breeze on the second day.

After 10 races, favorites Harvard and Stanford Universities rose to the top of the Eastern and Western divisions respectively, but the real action was in the middle of both fleets. As “underdog” teams from across the country alternated first-place finishes, every race reshuffled the top nine with the final spots in the Finals decided only in the last race.

In the Eastern Semifinal, a win in race 10B for MIT broke their ninth place tie with Hobart and William Smith Colleges to tie the George Washington University Revolutionaries for seventh and secure their spot in the finals. Coming in fourth in the last race, HWS put a seven-point gap between Cornell University and maintained their qualifying ninth-place position overall, leaving Cornell out of the final fleet.

In the Western Semifinal, the University of Miami Hurricanes pulled off an impressive rally with a second place finish in race 9B putting them in a position to pass fellow SAISA team Jacksonville University, and did so by beating them in 10B to punch their ticket to the finals by a 1-point margin.

It was a full-circle moment for University of Miami senior and B Division skipper Aidan Dennis whose team missed qualifying for Finals in 2024 by just one point. “We were ecstatic to say the least,” said Dennis. “To have been able to pull through this time around means the world to not only myself, but our entire team.”

Dennis, who has sailed at four national semi-finals, remarked that the racing this year was the closest he’s ever seen.

“I am super impressed with the growth of college sailing. So many teams like ours from typically less competitive conferences have worked tirelessly to close the gap with historically dominant teams from MAISA and NEISA whilst they continuously improve as well.”

While Stanford and Yale cruised to comfortable finishes at the top of the Western Semifinal, just 34 points separated first from ninth in the Eastern Semifinal. The scores now reset for the 18 teams as they face off May 29-30 to decide the final national champion of the 2024-25 school season.

UPDATE: No wind, no races on day one of the Finals.

Details: https://nationals.collegesailing.org/events/2025-open-fleet-racing
Finals: https://scores.collegesailing.org/s25/open-fleet-race-national-championships/
Eastern Semis: https://scores.collegesailing.org/s25/open-east-semi-finals/
Western Semis: https://scores.collegesailing.org/s25/open-west-semi-finals/

2024-25 Season

Fall National Championships:
November 9-10: Women’s and Open Singlehanded Nationals – St Petersburg, FL
November 15-17: Match Race Nationals – Oyster Bay, NY

Spring National Championships:
April 24-26: Open Team Race Nationals – Cranston, RI
April 27-28: Women’s Team Race Nationals – Cranston, RI
May 20-23: Women’s Dinghy Nationals – St Marys City, MD
May 27-30: Open Dinghy Nationals – St Marys City, MD

Source: Delaney Brown, ICSA