The number six haunted Yale sailors this weekend.
Yale placed sixth in the co-ed Ivy League Championship, which was one of six events the team entered on Oct. 12 and 13.
The co-ed team also placed third overall in the Hap Moore team race at the Coast Guard Academy in New London. A strong second day propelled the co-ed team to a good finish despite a shaky start.
But fluky conditions and shifting winds that prevented Sunday racing held the women to an 11th place finish in the Women’s Intersectional in Annapolis, Md. Intersectional regattas involve schools from more than one sailing region, often with as many as 20 teams participating.
Isabelle Kinsolving ’02, both teams’ assistant coach, said Saturday featured good individual races.
Molly Carapiet ’06, who skippered the “A” boat at the intersectional, said the regatta was worthwhile despite the poor finish.
“We had a rough start, but I think throughout the day we improved a lot and we learned a lot,” Carapiet said.
Carapiet said what she learned this past weekend should help her next weekend when Yale hosts the Yale Women’s Intersectional. And she said she would enjoy being at home after seven consecutive weeks on the road.
“It will be nice to be sailing on the home waters that we sail on every day,” Carapiet said. Carapiet won the single-handed New England Championship Oct. 6 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Kinsolving shared Carapiet’s enthusiasm.
“We hope to do well in the Yale Women’s [Intersectional], and we’ve been really excited by Molly’s winning the New England Championships, and we hope we can carry some of that momentum into this week,” Kinsolving said.
Yale sailors also participated in the fifth installments of the Southern Series and the Freshman Series, both hosted by Brown University in Rhode Island. Yale sailors placed fifth overall in the Southern Series and third overall in the Freshman Series.
The “A” boats in both regattas were extremely successful, with Eivind Karlsen ’06 and Courtney Cox ’06 taking first in the Freshman Series race and Edward Steward ’03 and Natalie Kitchen ’05 taking second in the Southern Series race. The freshman victory marked Yale’s first in the “A” division of the Freshman Series so far this year.
The weekend’s final regatta was the Smith Trophy at MIT. For women’s captain Elizabeth “Sunny” Larson ’03, one of two female skippers at the regatta, the coed race was a new experience.
“It was the first coed regatta that I had ever skippered, so that was interesting for me,” Larson said. “We did well and we’re figuring out the tech [type of boat], which is sailed almost nowhere else but MIT.”
Yale finished 10th in the “A” division and 13th in the “B” division of a field of 20 at MIT.
This coming weekend will slow things down for the Bulldogs — but just a bit.
The Bulldogs will travel to four regattas Oct. 19 and Oct. 20 while simultaneously hosting the Women’s Intersectional.
The event is Yale’s only women’s sailing contest at home this season. Yale hosted three co-ed races earlier this fall.
Another women’s intersectional, the Navy Fall Invite, will feature several distinct boat types in a major regatta. Tufts will host the sixth installment of the Freshman Series and the Lane Trophy team race. The New England sloop championships will be in New York City.
Yale will send sailors to all four regattas.