After four weeks of sailing, one could say the nationally-ranked No. 7 Jumbos are off to a solid start. One could also say, however, that they have terribly underperformed. But regardless of these differing opinions, one thing's for sure: The future is bright for Tufts sailing.
With opening finishes spanning from a first place victory to 12th out of 16, the Jumbos have seen a wide range of performances from their team.
This past weekend, Tufts sent three boats to the Boston Dinghy Club Cup at MIT/Harvard and came away with a ninth-place overall finish out of 18 teams. Despite the middle-of-the-pack finish, the Jumbos saw some impressive racing from sophomore Tomas Hornos, who continues to be a gem for the Tufts team.
In the A division, Hornos and senior Katie Greenlee placed fourth with a score of 134, 40 points behind the leading boat which was skippered by Yale senior Zach Brown.
"I really wanted to do well," Hornos said. "It was an intersectional, so it was a big regatta with other schools from different districts. We wanted to start the season off right."
While the A division held its own with consistently high finishes, the B and C divisions struggled to maintain any consistency whatsoever.
The B division boat, sailed by the junior tandem of Peter Bermudez and Christina Kelly, finished in 14th place with 182 points.
The C division boat fared slightly better, coming in ninth with 171 points. Sophomore Andrew Criezis skippered the boat with sophomore Jennifer Watkins and junior Dan Hurwit splitting time as crew.
At times, the Jumbos sailed brilliantly, especially early. In fact, Criezis won the very first race of the regatta for his division. Problems began to present themselves, however, as time wore on.
"We were a little more inconsistent and a little tired," Hornos said. "We didn't do as well as we usually do.
"We were all exhausted from spring break," he added. "We spent an entire week at St. Mary's in Maryland, where we camped out on the rugby field and hung out and practiced with the St. Mary's team. They're ranked No. 1 in the nation, so it was really good practice for us."
While the Jumbos don't view their ninth-place finish as especially good, it might prove more promising than at first glance. They were spent from a week of intense training and still managed some high-quality racing. Only two weeks earlier, the Jumbos showed just how strong the team is when they are fresh.
Tufts couldn't have started the season off much better than they did at the Wood Trophy at Salve Regina on March 8-9. Battling stiff breezes and heavy rain, the Jumbos captured the top place finish with 62 points, compared to second-place Brown's 66, Roger Williams' 72 and Salve Regina's 80.
The A division boat, driven by senior Michael Easton, grabbed four bullets out of the 10 races sailed, an extremely high rate of victory. Not to be overlooked was the outstanding performance of junior tri-captain Baker Potts, who took the B division with 29 points, including two winning races, and solidified the Tufts victory in the early stages of
the season.
"It was a tune-up regatta for us," Potts said. "We wanted to be able to get in the boats - we haven't been sailing since November at the ACCs. It was a good way to get ready for spring, plus it was at the same venue as the Nationals qualifiers at the end of April."
Potts, one of the most experienced sailors on the team, also acknowledged that consistency and minimizing mistakes were the keys to their victory at the Wood Trophy.
Consistency, as opposed to very high finishes mixed with some very poor ones, is undoubtedly paramount to the Jumbos' success, as they don't seem to have the firepower throughout the roster to be winning a large number of races.
While Tufts has maintained its high national ranking, it has also shown signs of trouble. On the weekend of March 22-23, the Jumbos finished 12th out of 16 teams, finishing 117 points behind the victor Yale in 24 total races.
But despite a somewhat shaky start to this season, the Jumbos know they have the potential to continue to climb the ladder in the national rankings. With promising young skippers complimenting an extremely strong and experienced core of upperclassmen, there are many more wins on the horizon.
"We have the potential to qualify for Nationals in all three divisions, including fleet racing, team racing and women's," Potts said. "Right now we're set back because we have a couple of injuries, so we have to wait to get back to 100 percent."
