College sailing: ‘No peaks, no valleys’

The 2025-26 college season concludes with fleet race nationals on May 20-30 in St. Petersburg, FL. Dartmouth sophomore Charlotte West will be there, and reflects on her second season… here’s an excerpt:

• I do feel like sometimes there can be a little bit of difficulty with trying to balance social life, athletics, and academics. It took me a while to adjust to the fact that you can’t always get all three of those right at the same time.

• We have this phrase called “no peaks, no valleys,” which means if you’ve had a bad race, don’t think about it and move on; or, if you’ve won four races in a row, don’t think about it and move on. You need to focus on what you have to do in the next race, not what happened in the last one.

• I really love our team. I feel like it’s very special because we spend so much time together, especially because we’re an off-campus sport. We spend 20 to 25 minutes in a van driving to practice every day since we sail on Lake Mascoma in Enfield, New Hampshire. We then spend our whole weekends together as a team, so we get really close to one another.

2025-26 Season

2025 Fall National Championships:
November 8-9 – Women’s and Open Singlehanded Nationals – Old Dominion Univ / Norfolk, VA
November 15-16 – Match Race Nationals – St Petersburg Yacht Club / St Petersburg, FL

2026 Spring National Championships:
April 23-25 – Open Team Race Nationals – Tulane Univ / New Orleans, LA
April 26-27 – Women’s Team Race Nationals – Tulane Univ / New Orleans, LA
May 20-23 – Women’s Dinghy Nationals – Univ of South Florida / St. Petersburg, FL
May 27-30 – Open Dinghy Nationals – Univ of South Florida / St. Petersburg, FL