In contrast with the common colloquial phrase, the sailing team may actually have had too much wind in its sails at this past weekend's Southern New England Team Race (SNETR).
The Jumbos failed to reach the second round -- or "gold round" -- of the regatta, and in doing so finished in 12th place overall out of 18 teams, well off the mark they were hoping to set.
"We expected to perform well but did not meet our goal of at least third place at this competition," said senior tri-captain Lara Hwa, who sailed with junior Tomas Hornos.
In terms of the mechanics of the regatta, the 18 teams were split up into two venues: the Coast Guard Academy and Conn. College, which are next door to each other and both sail on the Thames River in Connecticut. The top 10 of these 18 teams on Saturday consolidated in the "gold round" and sailed the following day at Coast Guard. Tufts failed to make this top 10 and therefore had no opportunity to even vie for a top-three finish on Sunday.
"This weekend, we did very poorly," Hornos said. "We did better the year before with a weaker team. Our goal was to finish top five in the gold round, but we didn't even make it to the gold round because we did so poorly on Saturday."
The biggest reason for such a disappointing performance was the disadvantageous weather.
"The conditions were all over the place," Hornos said. "The wind went from five to 25 knots with 40-degree shifts. It just made it really, really hard to cover people and to break away."
The consequences of such drastically fluctuating conditions, while never beneficial, are even worse when compounded by a team-race format. Sailing in a team race relies much more on the positioning of one squad's three boats relative to the other squad's boats, as opposed to a fleet race where it is every boat for itself. The strategies for these two racing formats are quite different and thus are affected differently by wild conditions.
For example, a team could be in first, third and fifth -- a winning combination -- but then a quick 20- or 30-degree shift could put those same three boats into second, fourth and sixth, essentially switching the positions of the three boats on the two teams. These shifts make a skipper's ability to cover another boat increasingly difficult.
Furthermore, with a fluctuation of not only wind direction but also wind speed, the choices to use a light crew versus a heavy crew became exponentially more critical. Ultimately, Tufts' selections for crews did not pan out as the Jumbos had hoped.
"We were sailing with our heavy air crews instead of the lighter air crews, the latter being who we normally practice with," Hwa explained.
In most cases, the position a boat is in dictates the moves it makes on the course. But when the position is somewhat ambiguous because of constantly shifting conditions, then decisions, moves and communication all start to unravel amid the chaos.
"The communication wasn't great," Hornos said. "There was a lot of confusion because during the race. It was hard to tell who was ahead because of the shifts."
Besides the inter-boat communication, a bit of confusion on the vessel may have contributed to the difficulty of the race as well.
"The skipper and crew always need to be in sync, so communication is key," Hwa said. "No one wants to be caught off guard, so the crew should be ready for anything. However, when it comes to communicating with teammates, we usually shout across the race course for help."
Tufts used a starting technique whereby one of its three boats was lined up at the committee boat, one at the pin and the third in the middle -- a typical plan of attack for starting a team race. With the shifty conditions, however, a strategy more typically employed in fleet races, in which all the boats head toward the favored end of the line, might have proven a better choice.
"We [did] a geographical start," Hornos said. "But one end was a lot more favored than the other, and we should've just fleet-raced and gone for a start near the favored end."
As for where the team sees itself in its quest to qualify for team-race nationals, Hornos expressed the need for improvement.
"We're a lot farther behind than we thought," he said. "We just need to keep trying, keep doing our best and keep working hard."
The next opportunity for the Jumbos to show improvement is at this weekend's Friis/Marchiando Team Race hosted by Tufts and MIT.
"We are hoping to do well from what we learned this past weekend, and it will take place at our home waters in our special Larks," Hwa said. "We hope to have the advantage over our competition because no one else practices in these boats."
