For the first time ever, Yale will be sending not one, not two, but three sailors to the North American Women’s Singlehanded Championships.
Bulldogs Jane Macky ’09, Molly Carapiet ’06 and Emily Hill ’07 dominated the NEISA Women’s Singlehanded Championships this weekend hosted by Boston College, finishing second, third, and fourth, respectively. The top four finishers qualified for Nationals, which will be held in November.
“It is a really good accomplishment,” said Carapiet, the women’s captain. “It really shows the depth of the team to have three of the four spots going to Yale sailors.”
The championship was a large one, with 28 sailors competing. There were nine races on Saturday and eight races on Sunday.
It was also a close one.
“It was good racing,” Macky said, “It came down to the wire in the last race.”
Macky finished second with 75 points, just two points behind Harvard senior Sloan Devlin, last year’s winner who went on to finish second at Nationals. Macky said she felt at home in the regatta’s lasers-class boats because that is what she is used to sailing.
Carapiet said she thought the entire team performed well.
“I thought that all three of us sailed really well,” Carapiet said, “I thought I sailed okay. I came out well on the first two races and then I struggled for a bit [Saturday]. I was able to hang on close enough and come back today.”
Hill thought her sailing was more consistent this weekend. She said she enjoys training with Carapiet and Macky because they work really well together — and she’s especially looking forward to training for Hawaii.
“We’ll work on fine-tuning our boat handing and work on our speed,” Hill said.
The three sailors will continue to train and push themselves to get ready for Nationals in November.
“It is awesome that all three of us are going,” Macky said.
While the women were busy dominating at New Englands, the coed team put in a solid performance at the weekend’s major intersectional, the Hood Trophy at Tufts. The Elis finished fourth in a field of 18 teams that included every other Ivy League team except Princeton.
Zach Brown ’08 and Sarah Himmelfarb ’06 put on a solid performance in A divison, finishing 11th but within 12 points of sixth. But it was the sailing by Phil Stemler ’07 and Abby Coplin ’08 in B division that was most impressive, as Stemler and his crew finished second to a very strong Boston College boat.
The most recent national rankings put the coed team fourth in the nation, up from sixth last week, and the women holding strong at No. 1, where they have sat since the preseason.
Next weekend the coed team has the Danmark Trophy at Coast Guard, as well as both the Southern Series Four and the Freshmen Series at home.