Yale Sailing saw both individual and team victories at a variety of different races this past weekend.
Thomas Barrows ’10 claimed the Men’s New England Singlehanded Championship, beating 21 rivals at the Roger Williams University event in Bristol, R.I. The women’s team won the Navy Women’s Intersectional in Annapolis, Md., while the doublehanded coed sailors placed second at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy Southern Series Five event and 15th at the Moody Trophy.
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Barrows was the solo representative for the Yale team at the singlehanded championship. The senior faced brisk winds gusting to 30 knots at times.
“The current was a big factor both days — it was really strong,” Barrows said. “Both days it was pretty windy — the last race had gusts up to 30 knots. The wind was also very shifty.”
Barrows won four races in the two days of racing, only finishing outside the top five competitors once in 19 races. All competitors sailed in the Laser, a 13-foot dinghy.
Barrows was the national champion in the popular Laser class in 2007-’08 and sailed in this class at the summer Olympics in China in 2008.
“It was a combination of being fast, physically in shape and being able to hike out for a long period and keep your head about it,” Barrows said of managing the difficulty of this weekend’s conditions.
Fred Strammer of Brown placed second in the event, 10 points behind Barrows.
The first place finish earns Barrows the chance to compete in the Glen S. Foster Trophy, the national singlehanded championship, which will be held Nov. 7-8 in Corpus Christi, Texas.
At the Southern Series Five event, which was held on Saturday in New London, Conn., Yale coed sailors Genoa Warner ’12, Rafi Fernandez ’13, Mike Hession ’10 and Jared Shenson ’12 sailed to a second-place finish overall. Hession and Shenson placed first in the B division, but the University of Rhode Island topped the Elis overall.
“We were all trading off,” Hession said of Yale, Tufts and URI. “If we got a first, they were in second and third. We were trading off scores the whole time.”
Hession added that the Elis had a definite advantage in the regatta because their training facility on Long Island Sound prepared them for the brisk winds that prevailed throughout the weekend.
At the Moody Trophy hosted on Saturday and Sunday by the University of Rhode Island in Wakefield, R.I., Andrew Kurzrok ’11 and Margot Benedict ’12 finished 17th in the A division. Rob Struckett ’12 and Stephanie Schuyler ’12 placed ninth in the B division. The Bulldogs placed 15th overall, with Brown taking the regatta.
“It was an intense A-level regatta with some people missing,” Benedict explained. “We had kind of an up-and-down weekend. It’s a little hard because the singlehanded championship was this weekend. Many of the teams had sailors missing.”
The women’s team topped second-place finisher St. Mary’s by 29 points at the Navy Fall Women’s Intersectional, which was divided into three divisions of 16 races and held Saturday and Sunday. Two divisions rotated between doublehanded FJs and 420s, and a third sailed singlehanded Laser Radials.
Sarah Lihan ’10 and Elizabeth Brim ’10 won the A division by 13 points. They have finished all but one of their 16 races this season in the top five.
Claire Dennis ’13 and Heather May ’13 took four wins and third place in the B division. The duo lost second place in a tie-breaker but placed as top-five finishers in 13 of 16 races. Emily Billing ’13 helmed the Laser Radial in the C division, winning three races and finishing in the top five in 14 of 16 races.
The women’s sailing team will host the Yale Women’s Intersectional next weekend. Sailing begins at 9:00 a.m. Saturday morning at the McNay Family Sailing Center in Branford. The coed Elis will divide up to travel to the Captain Hurst Bowl at Dartmouth, the Great Herring Pond Open at Mass. Maritime Academy, the Norm Reid Trophy Team Race at Boston College and the Lane Trophy Team Race at Tufts.