The coed sailing team traveled to New London, Conn., this weekend to compete in the Hap Moore Team Race Regatta. The U.S. Coast Guard Academy hosted the regatta on the Thames River, which saw great sailing conditions throughout the weekend. In a highly competitive field, the coed team came in sixth of 12 while local rival Boston College — the No. 1-ranked team in the nation — placed first overall.
Tufts is currently ranked 13th in the nation, four points behind Stanford and six behind Navy. This drop in ranking from ninth earlier in the season is attributed to poor finishes and inconsistent sailing in recent regattas.
The Hap Moore Regatta is the only major team-racing regatta of the fall. In a team race, three boats compete together, and the same low-point scoring system is used as in fleet racing, with the winning team determined by the best combination of points.
"It's like a qualifying series, and we finished third the first round, so we went to gold round, and we finished sixth place overall," junior Nicolas Russo-Larsson, who skippered with senior Roisin Magee as his crew, said. "We were willing to give up first place to help our teammates. It's about finishing your team, not just your own boat."
Junior skipper Massimo Soriano raced with senior crewmember Margaret Rew, while the last boat was skippered by sophomore Will Hutchings and crewed by junior Midori Tanaka. Team regattas are more common during the spring season, so both Soriano and Rew have relied on practice to get back into the team-racing mentality.
"Our performance this weekend is how we want to perform in spring," Rew said. "We qualified for nationals last year and hope to do so again. It's lots of fun to race in teams, and we are prepping now for the spring season."
At the Freshman Intersectional at Conn. College, the Jumbos came in second out of 18 total squads. Two boats represented each school that competed.
Freshman Polly Murray coached the team, and the Jumbos sent their top two freshman skippers, William Haeger and David Liebenberg, to race. Haeger sailed with senior crewmember Paula Grasberger and Liebenberg with freshman crewmember Julie Pringle.
"The two crews hadn't really sailed FJs, but they adjusted well and were pretty consistent in that respect," Murray said. "We had some streaks that were very good with straight bullets [first-place finishes] and others that weren't. We had both competing boats doing well, so we overcame other teams' inconsistencies. For example, the first Yale boat finished fifth and the other finished last."
The Jumbos' freshman sailors are a talented group; their overall finishes have been promising, and Haeger has already proven himself in earlier regattas this season.
"It's really nice knowing we will have them around for the next four years to continue their improvement and positive results," Rew said.
Next weekend, the coed team will travel to Navy to compete in the Atlantic Coast Dinghies Regatta. The women's team will be in South Florida at Eckerd College competing in the women's Atlantic Coast Championships, for which it qualified two weekends ago.
