Two second-place finishes, in the Loder Trophy Regatta and the Boston College Invitational, along with a victory in the Hood Trophy Regatta at home were all in a weekend's work for the sailing team.
Tufts hosted 24 teams from around the country at the 25th annual Hood Trophy Regatta at Upper Mystic Lake. Sailing for the Jumbos in the A division boat were seniors Michael Easton and Katie Greenlee, while sophomore Tomas Hornos and junior Lara Hwa sailed the B boat.
The Jumbos dominated in both divisions, winning the weekend regatta by a significant margin of 38 points. Tufts was the only team to stay below the 200-point threshold, with a combined score of 199 in 30 races. The second-place team from Boston College posted a score of 237, while last-place Princeton pulled in 640 points.
"Everyone always complains when we have regattas at home," Hornos said. "They complain that we have too much home-field advantage, so winning by a lot showed that it was more than that."
Hornos, back with the Jumbo squad and fresh off his Snipe World Championship victory in Portugal, made his presence known in a hurry. The sophomore continued his winning ways with an 88-point performance, outdoing each of the 47 other boats on the water.
"It felt good to be back here at Tufts," Hornos said. "It was a good win for us because at the regatta, we faced teams from many different sections that we usually don't sail against, so we wanted to have a strong outing."
The Jumbos also had a strong showing at the Loder Trophy, hosted by the University of New Hampshire, where they placed second out of 17 boats. Tufts' finish was largely a product of a fantastic effort from seniors Aaron Gerratt and Meredith Pickett in the B division.
The B sailors' 39-point first-place finish helped pick up the slack for the A boat, comprised of junior Dan Altreuter and senior Mika Green, which placed seventh and raked in 73 points. Combined, the two Tufts boats had 112 points, finishing only nine behind the first-place University of Vermont.
At the New England Women's Single-handed Championship held at Roger Williams, senior tri-captain Kaity Storck placed seventh out of 25 sailors with 155 points.
At the single-handed regatta, the sailors sailed Laser Radials, and though sailing Lasers at the collegiate level is much rarer than sailing double-handed, Storck was able to implement the same good dinghy sailing techniques that she practices in the Tufts' Larks to come away with an impressive finish.
The Jumbos had three other representatives in Rhode Island. Freshman Catherine Swanson, sophomore Erin Kestenbaum and freshman Meghan Pesch all had respectable finishes for Tufts, as the trio placed 15th, 16th and 21st respectively.
Unfortunately for the Jumbos, the team did not enjoy the same success at the New England Sloop Championship, hosted by Brown University in Newport, Rhode Island.
The Sloop Championship differed from most other collegiate regattas in that the boats, J-22's, were manned by three people instead of two. Unfortunately for junior tri-captain John B. "Baker" Potts, sailing the sloop wasn't as easy as the Beach Boys' "Sloop John B" made it out to be. The Tufts boat, comprised of Potts, junior Hans Tiefenthaler, and senior Jack Wittpenn, finished a disappointing ninth out of 10 boats.
"My boat handling was down, but my boat speed was pretty good," Potts said of the difference between sailing a Lark and sailing the significantly bigger J-22. "My starts were poor, mainly because I wasn't used to having to get the boat up to speed from a dead stop."
Though the team struggled a bit early on, the past weekend was a step in the right direction and likely a sign of good things to come. The Jumbos are hoping to ride the momentum into next weekend when they head to six regattas, including the Southern Series Three hosted by nationally-ranked No. 2 Yale.
