Tufts sailing continued its solid start to the spring 2001 season as both the coed and women's teams put in solid performances at this past weekend's regattas. On the women's side, Tufts took first place and won the Duplin Trophy at home on Mystic Lake. The coed team could not duplicate that success, but did manage to finish sixth overall in the Boston Dinghy Cup at MIT and Harvard.
Coach Ken Legler's women's squad defended its home water Saturday behind the efforts of senior Lee Icyda and sophomore Clare Dooley, as well as freshmen AJ Krane and sophomore Taylor Fallon. Icyda and Dooley raced to a second place finish in the A-Division, while the younger team of Krane and Fallon helped solidify the victory for Tufts with a second place finish in the B-Division.
On the coed-side, Legler's squad traveled to nearby MIT and Harvard to sail in a four-division, four-fleet race on the Charles River. The structure of the regatta pitted the sailors against each other in a two-day regatta, which featured divisions A through D and four different types of boats - FJ's, Larks, InnerClubs and Pech Dinghys. The four-boat format added a special feature to the race, also increasing its difficulty.
"Everyone sails four races in each of the four boats, which makes it a difficult race," sophomore Pete Levesque said. "The Larks and the FJ's are more modern, high performance boats, and the other two [boats] are older and more bathtub-like, so you have to adjust."
The necessary adjustments came fairly easily for the Jumbos, and the four teams that competed in the four divisions managed to secure an overall third-place finish. Levesque and fellow sophomore Caroline Hall sailed competitively in the A-division, finishing third overall. The pair, who started sailing in the A-division on the coed team in the middle of the 2000 fall season, trailed five other teams coming in to the final two races.
"Our last set was a good one," Levesque said. "We finished second and third, which made up a lot of points for us."
Tufts also received strong performances from seniors Adam Deermount and Lisa Keith. The pair sailed to individual victory in the B-Division and their performance was a major factor in Tufts' overall team finish. The C-division team of seniors Jen Provane and Laurin Manning took third in their division, as the D-division pair of Thomas Zanios and his partner Laurel Snetsinger finished fourth to round out the regatta for Tufts.
With its celebrated history of consistent success, the sailing team almost always contends for a first place finish. But team members were relatively pleased with their lower finish because of the high caliber of opponents.
"Harvard was really solid in all four divisions and did well," senior Lisa Keith said. "We were pretty close to Dartmouth, which was good because we were without [injured] John Birkett. That is about where we expected to finish, but we could have beaten Dartmouth."
"I though we were fairly consistent. We started quickly and had pretty good boat speed," Deermount said. "We did a fairly good job at being consistent across all four boats, which was key."
Despite its solid performance, however, the team will not rest for long before it heads back out for Mystic Lake practices. That's also where the Jumbos will be next weekend, when Legler and his team host the Friss Cup, one of the most important regattas of the season.
"The [Friss] regatta is our biggest home regatta of the season," Levesque said. "It is designed for spectators, which Mystic Lake also is great for, due to its small size and the fact that spectators can watch from the hills surrounding it."
Deermount agreed, and is hoping that a strong performance by Tufts over the upcoming weekend will be matched by a strong spectator showing at Mystic Lake.
"The commentary is done by our coach, and it has been in the past a relatively large spectator event," he said.
