Despite dropping from the national rankings for the first time in years, the young Yale coed sailing team displayed their potential this weekend. The Eli freshmen and sophomore skippers sailed to strong finishes in the New England Men’s Singlehanded Championship and an important intersectional regatta.
Matt Barry ’07 placed sixth of 18 in the single-handed event, held at Dartmouth this weekend, falling just two spots short of qualifying for the national championship. Phil Stemler ’07 also qualified for the New England championship, and finished 16th, one of only two other freshmen in the regatta. The men’s single-handed championships required each sailor to bring his own laser — a fast, flattened one-person boat that has long been a standard of solo sailing.
The coed team also saw success at the Sherman Hoyt Trophy Regatta at Brown despite what Meredith Killion ’05 called “difficult sailing conditions” throughout the same weekend. Eivind Karlsen ’06 and crews Courtney Cox ’06 (races 1-10) and Benoit Bewley ’05 (races 11-15) sailed to an eighth-place A division finish in a field of 18. Skippers Molly Carapiet ’06 and Julie Papanek ’05 and crews Jenn Hoyle ’05, Eric Steinlauf ’05, and Meredith Killion ’05 did even better in B division, finishing sixth and bringing Yale a seventh-place overall finish. Killion noted that the high winds and rain combined to make for very difficult sailing conditions.
Karlsen, who was the only Yale skipper to sail both days, said he was pleased with the regatta results.
“I think it went pretty well,” Karlsen said. “We finished seventh overall, so we know that we’re up there and we can start winning races, so I think the whole weekend was pretty successful. The whole team is improving together, and it’s starting to show in results. The team’s got a lot of potential.”
Karlsen also said the absence of all-star Stu McNay ’05 was a factor in the team’s recent efforts.
“We’re just trying to bring our game up, especially for when [McNay] gets back from his Olympic campaign,” Karlsen said. “We’re on a steep learning curve, and the rankings will go up when we get to the top of that learning curve.”
Papanek said her sailing on Sunday hurt Carapiet’s and her final B division score.
“Molly sailed fantastically well,” Papanek said. “I did not have a great event, but I’m not really sure what to attribute it to. I could have sailed better off the line — I just kind of had a bad day. It showed me what I needed to work on.”
The nationally ranked No. 11 women’s team gave its star freshmen skippers Kendra Emhiser ’07 and Emily Hill ’07 a chance to shine this weekend. Last weekend, Emhiser and Hill sailed elsewhere while the women, led by Carapiet and Papanek, qualified the women’s team for the Atlantic Coast Championships by finishing first at home in the Yale Women’s Intersectional.
But this weekend, Carapiet and Papanek sailed coed races while Emhiser and Hill traveled to Connecticut College in New London for the women’s Stu Nelson Trophy.
Emhiser, one of only two freshmen skippers in A division, sailed with crews Natalie Kitchen ’05 (races 1-8) and Kate Littlefield ’04 (races 9-15), but struggled, finishing 15 of 18 overall. But in B division it was Yale that dominated. Hill edged the Brown B boat by one point and the Tufts B boat by five points to finish first, allowing Yale to finish in ninth place overall.
Yale sailors also saw some non-intersectional action this weekend, sailing against six other teams in the Southern Series Seven at Roger Williams University Saturday. Skipper Benoit Bewley ’05 and crew Sarah Himmelfarb ’06 finished first in A division, while skipper Dan Santovasi ’05 and crew Alison Spitzer ’07 finished sixth in B division. Yale finished fourth overall in the regatta.
Next weekend, the women travel to the Women’s Victorian Coffee Urn, a major intersectional hosted by Harvard. The coed team will face the challenge of the New England Fall Dinghy championships where it will have a legitimate chance to climb back into the national rankings.
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