It makes for bad results in a lab. It leads to broad, often inaccurate conclusions. It's just all-around frustrating. It's called "small sample size."
The sailing team got the bad end of the "small sample size" stick this weekend, as it finished eighth out of 18 teams at the Atlantic Coast Championships (ACCs); but it came in a mere eight points out of fourth-place, taken by Navy, and 12 points behind third-place Harvard.
At the most significant regatta of the entire fall season, an entire day of the two-day event was eliminated because of a lack of wind. As a result, only 10 total races between the two boats from each school were sailed -- a number that left teams from second-place Roger Williams (67) to eighth-place Tufts (82) separated by only 15 points. St. Mary's won the regatta with 59 points. In comparison, 26 races were sailed at last fall's ACCs and there was a 45-point difference between the second- and eighth-place teams. Boston College won the Championship last year with 180 points.
"We realize how important every race is in order to finish well," senior tri-captain Baker Potts said. "I made one big mistake that was easily avoidable, which if I hadn't made that mistake we probably would have finished third or fourth."
The Jumbos are currently ranked No. 6 in the nation and have been as high as No. 5. The sailing team is also the most renowned and successful athletics program in school history, winning 24 national titles since 1975 in co-ed, women's, team racing and singlehanded racing combined.
So to finish eighth in the Atlantic Coast division could be seen, by these standards, as disappointing. That said, five of the seven teams to finish ahead of the Jumbos are currently higher in the national rankings as well.
"It was pretty disappointing," junior Tomas Hornos said. "Baker and I knew that we had really good chances to finish in the top three. I started off pretty weak, and I wasn't able to get enough good finishes to finish [overall] as well as we wanted to."
Hornos skippered the A division boat with senior Dan Hurwit as crew, while Potts led the B division boat with junior Nate Rosenberg trimming the jib. Hornos and Hurwit finished with 45 points, good for 10th in the division, while Potts and Rosenberg brought in 37 points and a fifth-place division finish.
Mother nature posed the biggest obstacle for the two Tufts boats. On the first day there was no wind, while the second day saw quite a change, as the sailors faced bitter cold winds that gusted up to 32 knots, with cold rain and even snow. Unfortunately for the Jumbos, a couple of harsh weather-induced incidents on the water were ultimately the deciding factor in their eighth-place, as opposed to a third- or fourth-place, finish.
Things began to unravel for the Jumbos as early as the end of the first leg of the first race of the regatta.
"The first race on the first windward mark, we capsized due to another boat fouling us going around the mark," Hornos said. "He capsized on us causing us to capsize and in turn ruining our race -- [we went] from fifth to 18th. I forgot that with such heavy breeze you have to play it more conservatively."
While technically speaking the Tufts boat was fouled, there is nothing that can be done officially to retrieve the fifth-place standing. Instead, as Hornos said, the best option would be to sail more conservatively around dangerous mark-roundings as a preemptive move to avoid these potentially devastating issues.
The 13-spot drop, in hindsight, would have been enough to bump the Jumbos up from eighth to third. But Potts also acknowledged a few mistakes of his own that could have led to a higher overall finish.
"Those mistakes were easily avoidable," Potts said. "They were totally in our control. [They were] mistakes that we could easily have avoided by thinking for a half second more about what we were going to do."
The constant struggle to keep the boat in check throughout the race was a task taken on by the two crews, whose jobs were made particularly difficult due to the inclement conditions.
"Nate Rosenberg and I sailed really well when it got puffy and variable, especially when the puffs were up to 30 knots," Potts said. "Our boat handling went really well -- Nate did a great job of keeping the boat flat and managing the boat in the conditions."
Hornos also commended Hurwit for his help, as well as the support of his usual crew, senior tri-captain Lara Hwa, and Potts' usual crew, senior Christina Kelly, who attended the regatta but sat out as heavier crew members were needed to accommodate the conditions.
"[Hurwit] and I were happy that we were able to hop into a boat for the first time this semester and have no communication issues," Hornos said.
"I appreciated his work," he added later.
Despite the few mental lapses, the Jumbos were generally optimistic about their performance at the Championship and particularly pleased with the fall season as a whole.
"The fall was definitely a good consistent season," Hornos said. "Baker and I were able to put together a bunch of good regattas with consistent results throughout the season. We've got to continue working hard, [and] we're looking forward to it."
"We're really happy with the whole fall," Potts said. "[There were] definitely a couple of regattas where we could have won it or been in the top three but due to avoidable mistakes we didn't. As a whole we're really happy. We ended up ranked third in New England, arguably the best region in collegiate sailing. We have a lot to look forward to in the spring."
