The winds were right for the Tufts sailing team this weekend as they finished first, fifth, and eighth, respectively in their three regattas.
The team's most successful results came at the weekend-long Hood Trophy, which the Jumbos won handily. At the regatta held on Tufts' own Mystic Lake, the home team swept the competition by over 43 points. Tufts finished with 105 points, followed by Boston College with 148 points and Dartmouth, who tallied 165 points. A total of eighteen teams participated in the field.
Junior Dave Siegal and sophomore Anna Martin guided their boat to a victory in the A division race.
"My skipper and I were really motivated," Martin said. "We kept our head in the game the whole time and we sailed smart. We tried to stay more focused than the other teams."
Sophomore Jeff Cruise and freshman Chryssa Rask continued the winning streak in the B division.
"It was a lot easier to do well since we were home and on our lake," Rask said, "and the conditions on the lake are pretty fluky. Honestly we were pretty far ahead of everyone else."
Coach Ken Legler was not surprised by his team's dominant performance, explaining that Tufts wasn't competing against its usual top-notch rivals.
"There were some conflicting events so we didn't get the best competition," Legler said.
Co-currently, other team members faced a much more competitive environment at the Chris Loder Trophy regatta held at the University of New Hampshire. The team pulled through with a solid finish at fifth place. The competition was closer than expected, with just a few points separating each team in the final scoring.
For this race, the Tufts team divided the nine races in half, allowing for two different boats to compete in each division. The purpose of this method, Legler explained, was to give more athletes a chance to participate. The A division navigated their way to a fourth place, with juniors Tom Leach and Sarah Woodworth sailing in the first six races, and juniors Alex Singer and Rachel Filip taking the last three.
Woodworth feels that the team could have done better but that the weather conditions were not conducive to the team's success.
"The conditions were pretty bad. The winds were up and down," Woodworth said. "Since the conditions were varied, everyone was all over the place."
Taking seventh in the B division, juniors Ian Beam and Eric Morley raced the first four races; they were followed by Jimmy Praley and Alex Lavers who raced the latter five.
Legler and Beam both felt that the B teams did not reach their full potential.
"The wind was really light and we just couldn't get the boats to go," Beam said.
At the New England Women's Single-Handed Championships, only two Tufts women, senior Kara Kelly and freshman Katie Storck, qualified for Sunday's competition. Each sailor skippered solo, with Kelly finishing eighth out of 18 teams and winning one of her races. Storck finished in fifteenth place.
Storck was excited that she passed the first tryouts on Saturday, given that she was the only freshman to do so and that she did so in such difficult conditions.
"It was really difficult sailing," Storck said. "There was no wind and a lot of current."
Legler thinks that while the team may not possess last year's All-Americans, they should be able to continue to perform well.
"We have some pretty good crews that will only get better by the end of the season."
Currently ranked ninth in the nation according to the Sailing World College Rankings of Sept. 21, the sailing team continues its season this weekend with two more regattas, the Danmark Trophy at Coast Guard, and the Penobscot Bay Open at Maine Maritime.
