College Sailing Chalk Talk: Season 10, Episode 5

Chris Love provides this report on the Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association (ICSA) 2013-2014 season along with his weekly Chalk Talk video:

(April 24, 2014) – This week in college sailing, the women had the spotlight, with Conference Champs in the largest and most competitive districts.

In the Mid-Atlantic, Georgetown took down the favorites from Navy for the win, with a standout performance from B division skipper Katia DaSilva ‘15, who spent the season crewing in coed regattas. Navy, Old Dominion, Cornell, Hobart/William Smith and Fordham also qualified for Nationals. In New England, Yale showed why they’ve been on top this season, winning both divisions. Boston College, Dartmouth, Rhode Island, Coast Guard, Brown, Bowdoin and MIT will join them at the big show at the end of May. And in the South Atlantic conference, Charleston won the single-day regatta and will bring along Eckerd, University of South Florida and University of North Carolina at Wilmington to Nationals.

The Midwest held its team race champs where the University of Michigan and Wisconsin were tied after five rounds. Michigan won the sail-off and the championship, but both teams qualify for Nationals.

In coed news, Stanford took another win at the three-division Boston Dinghy Cup at MIT and Tufts won on the other side of the bridge at Boston University’s George E. Morris Trophy. Western Washington took this year’s Rainier Cup at The Gorge in Cascade Locks, OR, and St. Mary’s captured the Admirals Cup, the other three-division event of the weekend, sailed at Kings Point. This cramming-in of coed fleet racing regattas this time of year is all part of the plan, following a full season of team racing and preparing for Coed Conference Champs, to be sailed this weekend in five out of the seven districts.

Beyond this weekend, there are but a few regattas left on the schedule, mainly in the colder conferences that got a later start. The rest of the country will be using the time to pass finals, graduate, and focus on putting on their best performance at Nationals, which begins May 27 with the Women’s Semifinals at the Naval Academy, and continues through June 6 with Coed Finals at St. Mary’s.

See full results at scores.collegesailing.org and follow Chalk Talk at Facebook for updates during the break and to see our special Nationals Edition episodes beginning at the end of May.

College Sailing Chalk Talk: Season 10, Episode 5
Should college sailing go under the NCAA? Should Nationals always have representation from every conference? In this special regular season finale, the gang interviews coaches and ICSA President Mitch Brindley about the growing number of teams in the top performance category of ICSA and what that could mean for the future structure of the league.

We’re off the air for the end-of-season break in competition, but we’ll be back for three special episodes during Nationals, starting at the end of May. Follow us at Facebook to find out when the episodes will air.

Chalk Talk is presented by US Sailing. College membership available at http://racing.ussailing.org/college. The show also enjoys support from Zim Sailing.

Chalk Talk is produced by Chris Love Productions – a video production company centered around sailing.