The past weekend was one of mixed results for Jumbo sailing. Due to high winds and poor weather, all but two of the team's scheduled regattas were cancelled. Two home regattas and one on the road at Brown were called off because of poor weather conditions.
At the Norm Reed Trophy, held at Boston College, Tufts sailors battled their way to the top of ten teams. Seniors Tommy Leach, Brendan Shattuck, Zoe Bolesta, Alex Singer and Christine Ash, and freshman Francine Magasinn helped the team to a 9-1 victory.
Tufts sailed to a 14th-place finish in a field of 22 teams at the Yale Women's Intersectional, six points behind 13th-placed Harvard and just ten points from cracking the top ten. Junior captain Emily Randall and sophomore Chloe Starr manned the A division boat to the 15th spot, while juniors Gretchen Curtis and Jen Giroux finished tenth in the B division.
"[It was] not nearly as good as we hoped," Randall said of the team's performance overall.
The Yale Intersectional was one of three qualifiers for the ACC tournament. The Jumbos were missing their top duo of sophomores Kaity Storck and Lindsey Gibbons-Neff, as the pair was sailing in a non-collegiate regatta.
Next week, the women's team will compete for the Stu-Nelson Trophy at Connecticut College, where the Jumbos, currently ranked seventh nationally and fourth in New England, will have a chance to qualify for the ACC Tournament. The team will need to place among the top five New England teams to qualify, and although there will be heavy national competition at next weekends regatta, only eight other New England teams will be competing. With the current fourth-place ranking in the region, the lady Jumbos have high hopes for qualifying.
The co-ed team will be heading to Providence, R.I. this weekend for the Sherman Hoyt Trophy at Brown. Currently standing at tenth in the nation and fourth in the New England region, the team will send its top crews to the regatta.
Tufts sailors have been active in non-team events as well. Senior Zander Kirkland qualified for the Intercollegiate Sailing Association Single-Handed Championships for the fourth time in as many years. Kirkland placed second in the New England Single-handed Championship at the University of Vermont on Oct. 8-9, which, along with the other top-four regional champions, qualified him for the national event, to be held in Hawaii on Nov. 18-20.
While Kirkland also participates in team sailing, this is a solo event that presents a new set of challenges on the water.
"This is something I do on the side; it's definitely a solo thing," Kirkland said. "You're out there on the boat by yourself, just battling the other sailors. I definitely miss the crew when I'm out there alone; they've got an extra set of eyes looking out for you. When you're sailing with a girl, she calms you down and makes rational decisions when you get excited. This will be different."
While the event is national in scope, the New England region remains one of the best in the country, and Kirkland will likely see some familiar faces in Hawaii.
"New England is one of most competitive districts out there," he said. "It's going to be a jump up at Nationals, but definitely some of the players at the top will be from New England."
In other sailing news, Storck and senior Bryan Prior participated in the Hinman National Team Race at the Larchmont Yacht Club this past weekend. The Hinman is a non-collegiate race that takes placed biennially and qualifies teams for the World Championship.
As with the weekend's other races, the weather was a factor in the three-day event, as Friday's midday and Sunday afternoon's races were cut short due to high winds. Prior said the high winds on the water made it more of a fleet race.
Prior's team, the "Large Mountain Ligers," was tied for first going into the final day of the three-day race, but was eliminated in the quarterfinals by Storck's team "Route 3 Split." Storck, sailing with her younger brother John, came in second in the race, beating a team that was the runner-up at Worlds last year.
