Tufts takes seventh at Navy Invite

This week the Sailing team took on bitter rival Navy in their headline race at the Navy Fall Invite. Falling to seventh place out of 20 boats, the race turned out to be a controversial match-up, leaving many teams questioning the final results.

Stanford and St. Mary's had an impressive day as both teams, finished over ten points ahead of any other teams taking first and second, respectively.

In the A-boat, Tufts seniors JR Maxwell and Deane Madsen tied for third (90) with Boston College. Freshman Bryan Prior and senior Caroline Hall tied for sixth (97) in B with Hobart. St. Mary's once again had a dominating set with 58 points.

Freshman Zander Kirkland brought in some impressive points for the C race, even against top-ranked competition from Georgetown. Kirkland sailed solo and took seventh (116.)

Georgetown finished with 38 points, 78 points in front of Tufts, 20 in front of second place Kings Point, and 35 points in front of third place Navy. In D, sophomore Brendon Shattack performed well, sailing into fourth place (86) and seventh place overall (389.)

"Many of the scores were not accurate," Coach Ken Legler said. "Navy's boat blew over and following the race Navy and a few other teams requested a do-over."

If this protest was not shocking enough, many racers were even more shocked that the officials took the protest into consideration and thought it to be valid.

"There was a redo of the race and now some other teams were not as satisfied with the second race as their first. To try to be fair, officials let the teams pick one of the two times to report to the score keeper," Legler said.

The Tufts sailors were not happy with what was going on and they let everyone know about it."JR Maxwell went face to face with an official for a good amount of time," Legler said.

Despite the controversy, freshman sailor Bryan Prior said there were other problems with the race.

"The race management was definitely not that good," Prior said. "Even if there was not a race score mishap, we still could have done much better than we did here. I expect us to do better next week."

The Jumbos also took part in the Wood Trophy at Harvard where Tufts took fourth place overall (134 pts). Division A, sophomores Lindsay Shanholt and Kate Singleton, had a rough start taking seventh place (35). Roger Williams, who had an overall mediocre finish, took first place, in the set.

In the second race, sophomore Kara Kelly and senior Marjorie Affel, took seventh place as well (43). Boston University had a commanding second set with 17 points. In the third group, freshmen Ian Beam and Rachel Filip put Tufts back on the map by taking first (21). In the final division, junior Ross Icyda and freshman Zoe Bolesta tied for fifth (35) with Harvard. Dartmouth only finished first overall (90).

At the Women's Intersectional at Yale, Tufts finished third (44). In Division A, seniors AJ Crane, Clare Dooley, and Kristen Tysell, took second (12). Dartmouth finished a point ahead of Tufts with the two schools distancing themselves from the third and fourth place teams, Yale and Brown, respectively.

Seniors Clare Dooley and Taylor Fallon fell behind in B as Tufts slipped to third (32) in the set and overall.Yale, Brown, and Dartmouth distanced themselves from Tufts and the rest of the schools in the second race. Dartmouth finished first both times with a score of 11 points to give them an overall 22-point first place finish.

In the two round Lane Trophy tournament at Tufts, the Jumbos went undefeated at 5-0. In round one, Tufts went 3-0. The two top teams, Tufts and MIT, raced against each other in round two. The Jumbos swept the Engineers, winning both races.

Finally, in the New England Sloops in New York, Tufts took fourth with 46 points led by seniors Pete Levesque, Rob Pascal, and sophomore Rory Gitten.

Next week the coed team goes to Coast Guard for the New England Men's Singlehanded Championship. Members of the team will also travel to Brown for the Sherman Hoyt Trophy, as well as to Boston College for the Oberg Trophy. The Women's team goes to Connecticut for the Women's Stu Nelson Trophy.