The weekend brought mixed results for Yale’s sailing teams up and down the East Coast.
Bulldog sailors split up and competed in three different regattas over the weekend. The coed team won the Naval Academy’s Fall Invite in Annapolis, Md., but placed 15th at Dartmouth’s Captain Hurst Bowl, while the Eli women took eighth at the Yale Fall Intersection.
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The Elis flourished in Maryland, placing above 19 other teams to win the event. The Bulldogs scored a cumulative total of 501 points over 20 races in the four divisions, ahead of runner-up St. Mary’s by a 20-point margin.
Yale boats finished in the top five of all four Navy Invite divisions. In the A Division, the Bulldogs tied with Brown for first place with 145 points. They finished second in the B Division with 129 points, first in the C Division with 94 points and fifth in the D Division with 133 points.
John Kempton ’10, who was the B Division’s skipper, said the team was happy with their performance.
“We’re looking to get better every week and become more consistent in all of our races,” he said. “If we improve every week we’ll be in great shape.”
The top finish required a big rally in the A Division by skipper and captain Zach Brown ’08 and his crew of Blair Belling ’11 and Grace Becton ’09. The trio had to overcome some difficulty mid Sunday.
“We were hit by another boat which pushed us back,” Brown said. “But we were able to do well in the last few races and help bring our team to the top of the leader board.”
Maryland’s weather conditions varied over the weekend, with a medium breeze of eight to 12 knots on both days.
“Saturday was a lot better for sailing than Sunday,” said Thomas Barrows ’10, a participant in the C Division. “There was a fair amount of wind, but we were able to get a lot of races in which was good. Sunday was a little tougher because the wind was shiftier and we were in a different, more difficult part of the river.”
The Bulldogs who took part in the Captain Hurst Bowl did not find as much success as their teammates in Annapolis. In the A Division, Emmet Smith ’09 and Rufus Peabody ’08 completed 15 races with 142 points and finished in seventh. The duo of Lynn McGregor ’08 and Andrew Kurzrok ’11 raced in the B Division and ended up with a score of 242 and a 19th place finish. McGregor, who was the crew for skipper Kuzrok, said sailing conditions at Dartmouth were not ideal.
“As usual, the conditions at Dartmouth were breezy and shifty,” she said. “The wind was very unpredictable, which made it difficult for everyone.”
Back in New Haven, the women’s sailing team hosted the Yale Fall Intersection and finished in eighth place out of 22 teams. In the 24 races, the Bulldogs managed a score of 243.
Liz Brim ’11 and Kate Hagemann ’09 raced in the A Division and scored 95 points, earning themselves a fifth place finish. The foursome of Molly Lucas ’11, Liz Clark-Polner ’09, Rebecca Jackson ’10 and Abigail Coplin ’08 finished 13th in the B Division with a total of 148 points.
The Eli women will sail at Connecticut College next weekend in the Stu Trophy Regatta on the Thames River. The coed team is scheduled to compete in the Oberg Trophy Regatta at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Sherman Hoyt Trophy Regatta at Brown and the Southern Series III at the McNay Family Sailing Center.