Sailing qualifies for two Atlantic Coast championships

The sailing team qualified for two more upcoming championship regattas in competition over the weekend, upping the team's fall season championship representation to four events.

Tufts placed second in the Schell Trophy Regatta at MIT, finishing with 258 total points, 67 behind winner Harvard. Dartmouth placed third. The result sends Tufts to the co-ed Atlantic Coast Championships, held at New York Maritime in two weeks.

The team will join fellow New England representatives MIT, Boston College, Harvard, Dartmouth, Brown and Yale. The ACC's will also feature teams from the Mid and South Atlantic regions, including nationally ranked top ten schools Kings Point, Hobart William-Smith and St. Mary's.

"We were pretty sure we were going to qualify," coach Ken Legler said. "It was a Boston-area regatta so we were essentially sailing at home and were familiar with the surroundings."

"It's going to be a really good regatta," sophomore skipper Dave Siegal added. "Winning in ACC's is just as hard as winning a national championship because typically the best teams come out of New England and the Mid Atlantic region. It's going to be really, really competitive.

Siegal and senior crew Katie Shuman sailed the A division and were joined by senior women's captain AJ Crane and classmate Kristen Tysell in B division, sailing 18 races in each division.

The regatta featured sailing from two different boats, FJs (Flying Juniors) and Tech Dinghies. The A division crews sailed ten races in FJs and the rest in Techs, while B division sailed eight FJ races and ten in Techs. This proved a hurdle of sorts for the Jumbos, who have sailed in FJs (small, lightweight two-sail dinghies widely used in college competition, frequently throughout the season). However, they do not have the same experience in Techs (under-powered single-sail boats with a rounder hull shape that rolls more than the flatter, speedier FJs).

"[Both divisions] did really well in the FJs and both struggled in the Techs, finding our straight-line speed, and that was the difference between first and second," Siegal said. "If we could have been faster in the Techs we could have been in closer contention for the regatta".

Tufts had hoped to win the Schell, but its inexperience in the Techs kept the team from sticking with a stronger Harvard team.

"Our goal was to win the regatta, and it would have been really nice to," Siegal said. "But I'm still really happy with a second place finish."

The Jumbos also competed in the Nickerson Trophy New England Freshman Championships at Coast Guard Academy on Saturday and Sunday. The team qualified for the Atlantic Coast Freshman Championships, to be held this weekend at Mass Maritime.

Skippers Peter Fallon and Jimmy Praley and their crews of Anna Martin and Michaela Brady-Lederer finished fourth in the Nickerson with 153 points, behind Dartmouth (93), Yale (114) and Coast Guard Academy (144). The four schools join Brown, Connecticut College and Boston College in representing New England in the ACC's, which will also include six Mid-Atlantic schools.

"I thought we usually sail a lot better than we did this weekend, but I'm happy that we qualified," Martin said. "There was some stiff competition."

Much like in the Schell, Tufts was focused on winning the Nickerson, as it was confident of qualifying, however according to Legler, the team under-performed.

"I thought the freshmen would do a little bit better. I thought they'd beat Coast Guard and at least finish third," Legler said. "But it's hard to know who's going to compete in the Freshman Championship."

Fallon and Martin were also hindered by judging miscommunications in one race, which was later rectified but still caused distraction.

"We were supposed to do five laps, and they finished us after four," Martin said. "There was miscommunication between the two committee boats and they punished us for that, but my skipper filed for a redress and they gave [the race] to us."

Tufts won two other events over the weekend, the Team Racing Series Seven at BC on Sunday and the Tufts Invite on Saturday. Tufts placed first, third and fifth, sandwiched around Brown (second)and Harvard (fourth).

The Jumbos also sailed third at the Rhode Island State Championships, finishing behind Brown and Dartmouth and three points ahead of Connecticut College, and they placed sixth in the women's Harvard Victoria Urn event.

Tufts will now focus on the ACC's. The freshman and co-ed teams join fellow qualifiers sophomore Zander Kirkland, who will sail in the Men's Singlehanded North Americans at Eckerd College in Florida in three weeks, and the women's team, which competes in the Women's Atlantic Coast Champs at Old Dominion in two weeks.

While the teams are likely set for this weekend's Freshman ACC's and next weekend's co-eds, there is room for change, should Legler decide to juggle crews to assemble the most competitive team possible.

"I think [Legler] will put the people he feels are best into this race, because it's a big deal," Martin said. "The teams we sailed against last weekend will be there and they were tough, but I know we can sail better than we did."