The No. 17 Tufts' women's sailing team raced to a sixth−place finish this past weekend at the Victorian Coffee Urn Regatta hosted by Conn. College, qualifying the Jumbos for a place in the Women's Atlantic Coast Championships (ACCs), hosted in St. Petersburg, Fla., in two weeks.
Skipper Catherine Swanson and crew Sara Carnahan, both seniors, were joined by freshman Margaret Bacon in the A Division and finished in fifth place out of 18 teams, anchoring the team's strong performance overall.
"[The regatta] went really well, and we really came together as a team," Carnahan said. "We are definitely prepared for the level of competition down in Florida, and we are optimistic about our chances of doing well there. The whole team worked really hard this season, and if we keep at it, things can only get better."
Though the team performed consistently well for most of the weekend, it started to fade late on Sunday. As a result, the Jumbos brought in some reinforcements. The Jumbos got a big boost from the addition of senior Margaret Rew to the A Division boat late on Sunday, substituting in for Carnahan. Rew arrived at the event from the coed regatta, which was taking place nearby on the Thames River at the Coast Guard Academy, with enough time to join Swanson for the final two races of the weekend. The team had been struggling, finishing 14th and 17th in their past two races before Rew's arrival.
But together, Swanson and Rew put together a first−place finish in one race and a second−place finish in their next, vaulting the A division squad from 10th to fifth and the team into one of the eight prized qualifying spots for ACCs.
"I had been sailing in the coed all weekend, and on late Sunday our alternate, [junior] Nicolas Russo−Larsson, and [senior] Roisin Magee sailed the last two sets," Rew said. "During those sets, the women were a mile away from us at Connecticut and I sailed with them. We had a great set."
In the B Division, sophomore skipper Natalie Salk sailed with a combination of sophomore Madeline Luce and junior Kathryn Booras as crew, finishing in a tie for fifth. The team was extremely consistent, only finishing outside the top 10 twice.
"On Saturday and Sunday the wind picked up quickly after the first set, so I switched from sailing with Madeline Luce to Katie Booras," Salk said. "There were a lot of holes and shifts within huge puffs that rolled down the course, which made for some sketchy sailing. For example, we were sailing upwind one race on Saturday, and we watched BU go from full−out hiking to flipping their boat over in a split second because of a random shift."
The team will travel to Florida in two weeks with a positive outlook after its strong results this past weekend.
"We have been to this regatta before in the past, and it's a challenge, but it's really fun," Rew said.
While the women were busy qualifying for the ACCs, the coed sailing team faced tough competition at the Erwin Schell Trophy hosted by the Coast Guard. There were strong winds on Saturday, and many boats capsized, but the water proved much smoother on Sunday.
The team braved the weather to come in 11th in an 18−team field. The group was extremely competitive and included 12 of the top 20 teams in the nation.
This regatta qualified teams for the Coed Atlantic Coast Championships hosted by the U.S. Naval Academy next weekend. The top eight teams qualify for the regatta, while the finishes in nine through 17th place, which includes the Jumbos, go into a consolation round.
The A boat was skippered by junior Massimo Soriano for the first 14 races and Russo−Larsson for the final four, while Rew and Magee split time as crew. The A division finished in 13th out of 18 teams in its division.
In contrast to the A division's frustration, the B division provided much hope for the future of the team. The high point of the weekend for the coed squad was freshman William Haeger's performance. With help from senior crew Sally Levinson, the first−year skippered the B boat to an impressive fifth−place finish. It was Haeger's third consecutive regatta as a starter for the team, and his consistent positive results have earned him a lot of respect from the rest of the team.
"We are all really excited about him because he's been very consistent," Rew said. "He's been able to come through in the clutch for the past three weekends."
Despite the disappointment of missing out on the ACCs, the coed team knows it has talent and can be extremely lethal in the future. It finished a mere 11 points out of the top eight spots, which, over the course of 36 races, equates to a mere 0.3 places per race out of a qualifying position.
"Even though we got 11th, we were really close to qualifying. We just lost in the last race or two," Rew said. "We were in fifth going into Sunday, and that's how tight it was. It was really a tough competition, and the girls turned it on in the end and qualified, and we didn't turn it on when we needed to and fell apart."
