Spring may have just arrived, but for the members of the Tufts coed and women's sailing teams, practice and regattas do not wait for the tulips to fully bloom.
The coed team has amassed top-10 finishes in each of its five events so far this season, and the women's team has picked up where they left off in the fall, putting in strong performances against national-name programs.
This past weekend, the coed team raced in three different events, sending delegates to the Marchiando Team Race Trophy at MIT, the Southern New England Team Race Championships at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, and the Szambecki Team Race Regatta at Old Dominion. The squad finished ninth, third and sixth, respectively, in each regatta.
The team's intense spring break training regimen, which took place at St. Mary's, may have affected its weekend performances.
"We struggled on Saturday because we had been working so hard over break," sophomore Meredith Ginley said.
The sailors are also dealing with some new changes in the program. Coach Ken Legler has switched to part-time work for the semester and Amanda Callahan has stepped in to lead the team. Callahan is a recent graduate of Hobart William Smith College where she was a collegiate All-American. She is also a member of the second-ranked world racing team, the Silver Panda.
The coed team took second in the Truxtun Umsted on Mar. 18 and 19, racing boats in A, B, C, and D divisions and finishing second behind ninth-ranked Georgetown. Tufts was led by two second-place finishes from the A boat, made up of senior skipper Dave Siegal and senior Bryian Prior and junior Anna Martin as crew. Senior Zander Kirkland was in the C boat. Siegal and Kirkland combined again this weekend to lead the Jumbos to a third-place finish out of 11 teams at the Southern New England race.
Back on Mar. 11, the coed team set sail against tough competition in the Admiral Moore Trophy, where it took first place in a field that included powerhouse St. Mary's College, as well as Div. I Georgetown, Brown, Michigan and Princeton.
The women's squad is coming off their best weekend of the season, scoring two high finishes against top-ranked Div. I teams.
The fleet took first place at the Women's Sloop Shrew Trophy at Boston College on Sunday. Both the A boat, manned by sophomores Kaity Storck and Lyndsey Gibbons-Neff, and the B boat of Gretchen Curtis and Jen Giroux finished second, and their points combined to give the Jumbos the top spot.
"This weekend's race was really exciting because BC is the site of our New Englands, which is the qualifier for Nationals," Storck said. "We got to get to know the venue a little."
The team finished fourth in a field of 11 on Saturday at the Emily Wick Trophy with 126 points, finishing just two points out of third and behind Dartmouth (first, 101 points), Boston College (second, 111 points), and Yale (third, 124 points).
Storck and Gibbons-Neff were once again paired in the Tufts A boat and turned in a second-best 41 points. Juniors Gretchen Curtis and Jen Giroux crewed the B boat and came in 13th, but some of their events were cut short by weather.
"It was supposed to be nasty - really breezy and rainy and snowing," Storck said. "The breeze in the morning was nice: around 12 knots, which is perfect, but it ended up dying, and we got our four A races in the morning, but even then the breeze had shifted a lot."
Storck and Gibbons-Neff also represented the St. Mary's College Women's Intersectional held at St. Mary's College on Mar. 18 and 19, finishing 10th in the 14-team field.
Senior co-captain Randall feels that the team needs to continue to work hard and improve before All-New Englands on Apr. 22-23, when the top five teams will qualify for Nationals. Tufts is hoping to finish first in a pool that commands the top rankings in collegiate sailing.
"I'm really excited for this season and for New Englands, which are just around the corner," Storck said. "We've all been working really hard all year and working out all winter, so it should be a lot of fun."
The Jumbos have been hard at work preparing for the qualifying races leading up to New Englands. During spring break, the team sailed with fifth-ranked St. Mary's.
"All week we [had] bone-crushing erg sessions on the water," Kirkland said. "They were legit."
The Jumbos' high finishes in the young spring season have pushed them up in the national standings. The coed team is ranked ninth in the country, according to the Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association of North America, with the women's team coming in at 13th.
"We have a good shot at qualifying for Nationals," Randall said. "If we keep sailing the way we're sailing, we should be there."
This coming weekend, the coed team will compete in the Boston Dinghy Cup at MIT, which will feature four boats instead of two. The sailors are hoping that the depth they displayed at the Truxtun will be reflected in this race.
The women's team will have a home regatta where it races for the Duplin Trophy, an event in which the team finished third last year. The regatta will be held on Mystic Lake and will begin at 9:30 a.m. on both Saturday and Sunday.
