Tag Archive: Sailing

  1. SAILING | Elis battle adverse weather

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    More than in any other sport, sailing is subject to the elements. Accepting that is part of being a good sailor. Throughout the season, the Bulldogs have had to demonstrate such patience. This weekend was no exception, as uncooperative wind conditions made the racing schedule particularly unpredictable.

    For the second straight weekend the No. 1 women’s team was unable to complete a regatta, while the No. 3 coed team, despite imperfect conditions, put its head down to grind out first-, second- and fourth-place finishes at the three regattas in which it participated.

    Whereas last weekend too much wind prohibited the women’s team from any sailing, this weekend, at the Stu Nelson Regatta hosted by Connecticut College, too little wind prevented Yale from picking up the victory that it seemed to deserve. Through six races on Saturday — four in A division and two in B division—the Bulldogs catapulted themselves into first place. However, a lack of wind forced Sunday’s races to be cancelled, and the regatta’s limited results will not count. The results become official only when three races are completed in each division. Therefore, although the Bulldogs seemed destined for victory on Saturday, the regatta will be discounted.

    Meanwhile, the coed team fought frustrating wind fluxes, unable to sail a full slate of races on Sunday at any of its three regattas.

    The coeds garnered a second-place finish at the biggest regatta of the weekend, the Sherman Hoyt Trophy hosted by Brown on the Providence River. Due to erratic wind patterns, only six races in each division were completed. In A division, skipper and captain Joe Morris ’12 and crew Isabel Elliman ’12 finished second, just one point out of first. In B division, skipper Christopher Segerblom ’14 and crew Heather May ’13 finished fifth.

    Going into the last race, the Bulldogs were in first place. In both divisions, though, the last race was their undoing. In A division, after finishing first out of 18 in races three through five, Morris and Elliman slipped to 14th in the final race of the regatta. The story in B division was nearly identical, as Segerblom and May finished well in four of the first five races, but came in 15th in the final race.

    Elliman preferred to focus on the squad’s encouraging start rather than its disappointing finish. “It definitely was frustrating that the last race had such an impact,” Elliman said. “But we had a good beginning of the regatta. It’s important to remember what we learned instead of focusing on the last race.”

    The Elis were perhaps unfairly hampered by one bad race, as so few races constituting the regatta left the duos no time at all to redeem themselves. Despite a rough finish, the coeds came in just three points out of first, relegating No. 1 Charleston to third.

    At the 138th Rudolph Oberg Trophy hosted by MIT on the Charles River, the coeds came in fourth. This was the fullest regatta of the weekend, with 11 races completed in each of the regatta’s three divisions. Only oneof the 11 races took place on Sunday. In the tightlycontested A division, skipper Graham Landy ’15 and crew Amanda Salvesen ’14 finished fifth. While acknowledging the difficulty posed by the shifting winds of the Charles, Landy attributed the duo’s good weekend to discipline.

    “We’ve been focusing on simplifying our races,” Landy said. “That includes minimizing risk, as well as performing maneuvers we’re more comfortable with that we’ve practiced.”

    In the same regatta, skipper Max Nickbarg ’14 and crew Genoa Warner ’12 combined to finish sixth in C division. Nickbarg emphasized the importance of the enigmatic Charles River.

    “With the Charles, it’s sort of hard to notice any trends in the wind,” Nickbarg said. “At Yale we don’t sail on a river or a lake, so it’s a different strategy.”

    The coeds emerged victorious in a third regatta, winning the Boston College Invitational in Dorchester, Mass.The regatta, which consisted of nine teams, was sailed simultaneously in two divisions.The Bulldogs sent a young squad of four, and it did not disappoint. In A division, skipper Morgan Kiss ’15 and crew Katherine Gaumond ’15 won handily, with four victories in just 10races. With four first-place finishes out of the last six races, Kiss noted her team’s development.

    “We felt that we improved as the weekend progressed,” Kiss said. “It was good for us to practice in the shifty conditions. Sailing events at different venues has helped us become more comfortable in different conditions.”

    Next weekend, the women’s and coed teams will travel to Cambridge, Mass. to attempt to qualify for the Atlantic Coast Championships. In addition, the coeds will send a team to Connecticut College as well as hosting the Dave Perry Trophy here at the Yale Corinthian Yacht Club.

  2. Sailing breezes past competition

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    The women’s and coed sailing teams enjoyed a second straight successful weekend, winning two regattas and finishing in the top three in all four regattas in which they participated.

    For the coeds, Cam Cullman ’13 qualified for the National Championships in Lasers, much like his women’s team counterparts — Claire Dennis ’13 and Emily Billing ’13 — did last weekend, while the women’s team emerged victorious at an important intersectional regatta in Annapolis, Md.

    In nearby Niantic, Conn., the coeds hosted the New England Singlehanded Championships, a regional qualifier for the National Championships in Lasers. Lasers are one-person boats, and most college regattas do not offer divisions in Lasers. According to members of the sailing team, the skill set required for sailing Lasers isdifferent from that required forsailing boats more traditionally raced in college regattas, such as FJs and 420s.

    This weekend, Cullman and Max Nickbarg ’14 attempted to qualify. Although Nickbarg’s 11th place finish was not enough for him to qualify, he was in contention for much of the regatta.

    “Towards the end of the day, the breeze started to die off and it became really super shifty and unpredictable,” Nickbarg said.

    Nickbarg’s teammate had more luck with the wind. Displaying his consistent mastery of Lasers, for the second straight year Cullman came in first in the qualifiers. He crushed the other 21 competitors, finishing the regatta’s 16 races with an astonishing 60 points, a massive 58 points in front of second place. Cullman took seven first-place finishes and finishedhigher than fourth place on average. After finishing third at last year’s Nationals, this year Cullman is optimistic about grabbing gold.

    “I’m feeling really good,” Cullman said. “Looking at the results from last year’s nationals, everyone else in the top five graduated.”

    Meanwhile, the coeds participated in the Storm Trysail Big Boat Regatta in Larchmont, N.Y. The six Bulldogs sent there managed to secure a third-place finish despite having practiced on a keelboat just once prior to the race. With over 40 teams present, the Storm Trysail is one of the biggest regattas all year.

    Before a lack of wind on Sunday cancelled the day’s proceedings, the Bulldogs managed to entrench themselves in third place through the three long races on Saturday. Crew William Feldman ’14 emphasized the experience more than the result.

    “We got to try a different kind of sailing that’s not really typical college sailing,” Feldman said. “We got to see a lot of teams from the west coast that we don’t typically see.”

    A third group of coeds went to a traditional regatta sailed in FJs, the Moody Trophy, hosted by the University of Rhode Island. Despite the different boats and different venue, the result was much the same, as the Bulldogs placed third.

    Skipper Graham Landy ’15 and crew Katherine Gaumond ’15 guided their boat to fifth place in the competitive A division, while skipper Marlena Fauer ’14 and crew Eugenia Custo Greig ’14 finished first in the B division with six top-five finishes from nine races. Fauer explained that learning from her own and her teammates’ mistakes was pivotal to the team’s success.

    “Graham and Kate sailed really well,” Fauer said. “We both had a couple slip-ups, but we both learned from our own and each others’ slip-ups to achieve a good result.”

    The women’s team ensured that it won the only regatta it visited this weekend, the Navy Women’s Intersectional Regatta in Annapolis, Md., one of the biggest women’s intersectionals of the fall. Since the regatta was sailed in three divisions, each in a different boat—FJs, 420s and Laser radials—the Bulldogs displayed great versatility in garnering the victory. In the B division, skipper Morgan Kiss ’15 and crew Amanda Salvesen ’14 were outstanding, finishing first out of 17 with just 11 points from seven races.Kiss said she was happy with the team’s showing.

    “I think we sailed pretty consistently,” Kiss said. “So we felt pretty good about it.”

    Next weekend, the women’s team will be in action at home in the Yale Women’s Intersectional, while the coeds will sail in three regattas at Dartmouth, Navyand Massachusetts Maritime.

  3. SAILING | Yale’s ignored national powerhouse

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    On a mid-September Tuesday, it was pouring in Branford, Conn. The coed and women’s sailing teams were about to start practice, and everyone was already drenched. Many members of the team had chosen to wear waterproof layers out on the water. Max Nickbarg ’14, however, chose to go shirtless under his life jacket.

    “We’ll be wearing dry suits too soon,” he said.

    Yale’s youngest varsity teams practice in fall rainstorms and on frigid spring days, and have become forces in the sailing world: In 2009, they won the Fowle Trophy as the top team in collegiate sailing and, in 2011, they boasted six All-Americans on their roster. Both the coed and women’s teams are currently ranked No. 1 in the country.

    “We were a young team last year, but we learned a lot,” Cam Cullman ’13 said. “Now the targets are on our backs and the pressure is on. We accept that and we’re going to try to make the most of it.”

    Despite that success, team members said that they compete in relative obscurity. Their boathouse is a 15-minute drive from campus, and their competitions — which are often held far from shore — are by nature not suited for spectating. Moreover, home competitions are few and far between — the coed and women’s teams each have one regatta in Branford this year.

    Instead of competing at home, the Elis travel all over New England and beyond. In every weekend of September, the coed sailing team participated in at least three regattas. Last weekend, it raced in four across three different states. Meanwhile, the women’s team traveled to Boston for a regatta of its own.

    The two teams race in as many as eight events on any given weekend, and travel not only to every New England state but also occasionally to California, Maryland, Florida and Illinois for events.

    YALE’S YOUNGEST TEAM

    Yale’s Corinthian Yacht Club, which was founded in 1881, is the oldest collegiate sailing club in the world. And yet the Eli varsity team is less than a decade old. When head coach Zachary Leonard ’89 was earning All-American status as a skipper at Yale, he was doing so for the club team.

    The old club team took the sport seriously, Leonard said, adding that it would drive to Louisiana every year for a Mardi Gras regatta. But most other college teams also operated at the club level then. As competitors were promoted to varsity, they began to enjoy a recruiting edge. So, funded by an alumni gift in 2002, the team made the move to varsity.

    Despite that transition, Yale’s sailors sometimes operate in a world that seems separate from most varsity teams. Because they have only two coaches but travel to so many regattas each weekend, the team must either hire recent alumni to accompany athletes to events, or send athletes off on their own, Leonard said. The members of the team drive rental cars to various New England locations.

    The athletes are also responsible for some work around the boathouse. When the team expects storms, the Elis must move their two 4,000-pound docks from the water onto dry land, skipper Chris Segerblom ’14 said, adding that they do so by placing a row of PVC pipes underneath the docks and rolling them steadily up hill.

    The team is also unique for its reliance on walk-ons. The program sponsors introductory sailing courses for students every fall, and many of the students who begin with those courses are contributing to the program by the end of their Yale careers, said women’s captain Margot Benedict ’12, who was one of those walk-ons.

    A Vermont State Alpine Ski champion in high school, Benedict began sailing her freshman year, and was traveling to nationals with the team by the time she was a sophomore. Last Sunday, she and skipper Morgan Kiss ’15 paced the women’s team to a fourth-place finish out of 16 teams at a regatta in Boston.

    But sailing is an incredibly complex sport, Leonard said, and success stories like Benedict’s are not common.

    SAILING 101

    Most collegiate sailing is done in two-person boats, manned by a crew and a skipper, Leonard said. The skipper steers the boat, while the crew is responsible for the sails. Although the two have separate responsibilities, communication between them is essential, sailors said. Boats travel slowly and must make the most of even the slightest winds, and so every shift in weight or positioning a sailor makes can transform a race.

    During practice, the team discusses bigger questions of race strategy and right-of-way. But because small details are so important, the team’s coaches also focus on checking that the sailors have their sails well adjusted and have positioned themselves at the correct part of the boat.

    That positioning depends on the weight of the crew and on the condition of the winds, members of the team said. The ideal combined weight for the sailors in a boat is 280 to 290 pounds, but changes depending on the condition of the winds, men’s captain Joseph Morris ’12 said. In light winds, a team should be as light as possible, but up to 330 pounds in heavier winds. And even if a pair combines for that ideal weight, it must still position itself correctly in the boat to use that weight to its advantage.

    Shifting weight is particularly important when a crew tacks and jibes — nautical terms for quickly shifting direction. Race courses are designed with upwind legs and a downwind legs. When sailing against the wind, teams must race in a zigzag pattern in order to use as much of the wind as possible. Then, on the way back with the wind at their backs, sailors must ride the waves — a technique similar to surfing that Morris called one of the most difficult in the sport.

    Determining the best pattern through the course requires the judgment of the skipper, Cullman said, a skipper himself. Even when the best path through the course seems simple, the disadvantage of racing alongside many of the other boats in the regatta sometimes means that a skipper must chart a different path.

    Moreover, the wind is rarely constant throughout a race. Its direction and power can always shift, and so a skipper must be prepared quickly to change his strategy.

    But one difficult wind shift will not will not sink a team’s chances in a regatta. Each regatta has dozens of races — wind permitting — so consistency throughout the weekend is the most crucial part of success.

    To maintain balance throughout the races, universities will rotate among different boats to ensure that minor differences among the vessels do not influence the competition. Still, sailing is unpredictable, and even first-place teams can find themselves at the back of the pack. At Yale’s Harry Anderson Trophy in early September, Segerblom and Benedict finished last overall in one race but still finished first in their division.

    “If you can get the wind right 60 percent of the time, you’re doing great,” Segerblom said.

    Sometimes, wind not only shifts but dies out completely. If calm conditions persist, even the most important races sometimes have to be cancelled — including the women’s national semifinals two years ago.

    The Elis, if they can maintain their high rankings in the national polls, will hope that this year’s championships are not cancelled so that they can try to recapture the Fowle Trophy.

    Yale will continue its season with another busy weekend on Saturday that includes regattas at Coast Guard, Connecticut College, Tufts and MIT for the coed team, as well as a home regatta for the women.

  4. SAILING | Windless weekend doesn’t stop sailors

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    Glassy water can be beautiful, but there is nothing uglier to a sailor.

    For the second straight week, a lack of wind in the Northeast limited the activity of the No. 1 coed and women’s sailing teams. The women’s team completed a weekend-high 14 races at its regatta, seven in each division, while none of the four coed teams sailed in more than eight.

    Several members of the team expressed frustration at the small number of races that were sailed this weekend. When regattas consist of few races, it is hard for a superior team to differentiate itself from the pack, they said. Still, some Yale sailors took it in stride.

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    “Light-air racing kind of comes with the college sailing job description,” Chris Segerblom ’14 said.

    The women’s team managed a fourth-place finish out of 16 at the Women’s Regis Bowl, hosted by Boston University. The coed sailing team, meanwhile, sent four squads to New Hampshire, R.I., and the Boston area, each with varying levels of success.

    The Charles River proved kinder to the women’s sailing team this weekend than it had to the coeds a week ago. The women’s team battled the shifty conditions to earn 72 points in their 14 races, securing fourth place out of 16. The total was just 10 points short of second place. Emily Billing ’13, A-division skipper, said she was satisfied with the result but not fully content.

    “I think we did well, but I think we could have done even better,” she said. “The wind was really light; there was barely enough breeze to sail.”

    The coeds were most successful at the Professor Steadman Hood Trophy hosted by Tufts. Despite a total of just four races per division, the Bulldogs made sure to capitalize when the wind cooperated, finishing third out of 21. In the B division, skipper Chris Segerblom ’14 and crew Heather May ’13 finished second with 20 points, including two second-place finishes. Segerblom said that he was pleased with the team’s result, while emphasizing the impact of the conditions at this regatta.

    “Conditions were so shifty and light that there was a lot of opportunity to make gains and catch up,” he said.

    At the New England Sloop Championships in Boston Harbor, amid on and off wind, the Bulldogs narrowly failed to qualify for match-racing nationals. Led by captain and skipper Joe Morris ’12, a crew of four coeds lost out to Roger Williams in the quarterfinals of the Championships. However, as this was one of the first years the coeds have attempted to qualify for the match-racing nationals, the disappointment at falling short was not overwhelming.

    “This was our first year giving a good go at it,” Morris said of the Sloop Championships. “We knew there would be a good chance we wouldn’t qualify, but this is experience under everyone’s belt.”

    At the Salt Pond Invitational in Rhode Island, mother nature was again a factor, as a lack of wind forced the University of Rhode Island to cancel Sunday’s races. At the end of the regatta, the Bulldogs sat sixth out of eight.

    Nowhere was there less wind than in New Hampshire at the Chris Loder Trophy, where the Bulldogs were unable to sail all weekend. The regatta was cancelled, but all was not lost, as the coeds who made the long drive to New Hampshire were treated to a grilled cheeseburger lunch on Saturday and to Wildcat muffins on Sunday.

    Although being able to adapt to the wind is essential in sailing, the unpredictability of the wind at the beginning of this season has nevertheless provided a challenge to both of the sailing teams. Morris emphasized that the best teams find a way to win, knowing that conditions are out of their control.

    “Every other team in New England is going through the same thing,” he said.

    Next weekend, the women’s sailing team will host the New England Women’s Singlehanded Championship here at Yale. The coed team will send sailors to regattas hosted by Coast Guard, Connecticut College, Tufts and MIT.

  5. SAILING | Frustrating weekend for No. 1 sailors

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    Although the women’s and coed sailing teams came into the weekend with the high of No. 1 rankings, the women barely got a chance to back up that mark as a lack of wind limited its sailing, while the coeds struggled in its three regattas, finishing no higher than eighth. Each coed regatta featured 20 or fewer teams.

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    The coed sailing team was active on three fronts, finishing 11th at the Hatch Brown Trophy hosted by MIT, 10th at the Nevins Trophy in Kings Point, N.Y., and eighth at the Boston College-hosted Boston Harbor Invitational. Despite racing so little, the women’s team managed a second-place finish at the Mrs. Hurst Bowl in Hanover, N.H.

    The Hatch Brown Trophy in Cambridge, Mass., is unusual because it is sailed in three divisions instead of the usual two. In the regatta’s A division, skipper Chris Segerblom ’14 and crew Isabel Elliman ’12 finished 16th of 18, with six top-10 finishes. It was an especially disappointing result for Segerblom, coming off a week in which he and teammates Margot Benedict ’12 and Heather May ’13 were named the New England Intercollegiate Sailing Association’s coed sailors of the week.

    Elliman cited the harsh conditions on the Charles as a major reason behind the pair’s struggle.

    “The Charles is a really tricky venue and the conditions usually aren’t that stable,” Elliman said. “You can’t tame the Charles. I think we learned that this weekend.”

    In the C division of the same regatta, skipper Claire Dennis ’13 and crew Heather May ’13 faced tough competition and finished eighth despite ending the day just seven points out of third place after grabbing 13 top-10 finishes out of 16 total races.

    At the Nevins Trophy in Kings Point, N.Y., which was also sailed in three divisions, freshman skipper Graham Landy ’15 made his collegiate sailing debut, turning in the best result of the weekend for the coed team. Despite a nervy start, including a 15th- and 14th-place finish on his first two races, Landy finished fourth in the A division, aided by crews Will Feldman ’14 and Eugenia Custo Grieg ’14.

    “I think I sailed well considering it was my first weekend, but there were certainly some elements of rust that showed,” Landy said. “Moving forward, I’ll continue to get better very quickly and work hard to get to the top level.”

    In the C division, which was sailed in Lasers, a boat used in few regattas, Max Nickbarg ’14 looked to build on the experience he accrued over the summer on the European sailing circuit. But this weekend, despite some high finishes early in the regatta and strong starts throughout, Nickbarg managed only 11th place. Nickbarg chalked up his struggles to his inability to “stay in phase with the shifts,” meaning he was unable to catch the wind from an optimal angle.

    To round out the weekend, at the Boston Harbor Invitational in Boston, Mass., the coed team gathered a fourth-place finish in the A division and an eighth-place finish in the B division, good enough for eighth overall.

    The women’s team was the victim of a dearth of wind, which restricted the Mrs. Hurst Bowl to just four races on Saturday. Through those four races, though, the Bulldogs placed second overall, just two points behind first place. Marlena Fauer ’14 skippered in the B division and finished second in that group. Fauer thought that she and crew Kate Gaumond ’15 could have finished even higher had there not been such spotty wind. Fauer said that towards the end of two of the four races, she and Gaumond were among the top three, only to have the wind disappear and return to the advantage of the trailing teams, who eventually overtook them.

    There was one absence of note from the coed team: the Bulldogs were deprived this weekend of captain and senior skipper Joe Morris ’12, whose attendance was required at the wedding of his sister.

    Next weekend, the coed and women’s sailing teams will send sailors to regattas in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island.

  6. SAILING | Three third place finishes for sailors

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    In his first race on Sunday, Chris Segerblom ’14 finished dead last. Just three races were left at the Harry Anderson Trophy regatta, and he sat in fifth place in the regatta’s A division.

    But Segerblom finished fifth in the next race and then, with Heather May ’13 replacing Margot Benedict ’12 as his crew, clinched a come-from-behind victory in the A division when he ended with a third- and then a first-place finish.

    That performance paced the No. 5 Yale coed sailing team to a third-place finish overall at the Harry Anderson Trophy, its only home regatta of the season. Meanwhile, skipper Joseph Morris ’12 led a crew of three Elis as they qualified for the next round of the National Sloop Championships with a third-place finish of his own in Newport, R.I. And in Boston, the No. 1 women’s sailing team also took home the bronze, finishing a close third to Brown and Boston College at the Toni Deutsch Trophy regatta.

    “It was a building weekend, a learning weekend,” Morris said. “We wanted to get out there and see what we could do after a long offseason.”

    Segerblom showed few signs of rust, as he and Benedict finished the first day of the Yale regatta with top-five finishes in half their races against a 20-boat field. But the strongest individual Eli boat of the weekend was that of skipper Marlena Fauer ’14 and crew Eugenia Custo Greig ’14 who raced at the Toni Deutsch Trophy in Boston, over 100 miles away. Though Fauer said the pair had little experience together before the weekend, they finished first among 14 boats in the B division by a wide 41-point margin.

    Fauer and Custo Greig started and ended the regatta with second-place finishes, and stayed consistently at the top of the field throughout. They finished no worse than ninth in any one race and averaged just worse than third. That consistency came even though they raced a grueling 26 races — a number Fauer called “unheard of.” Sailors at the Harry Anderson Trophy raced only 10 times.

    Head coach Zachary Leonard ’89 said that amount of sailing was mentally as well as physically draining.

    “A huge part of our sport is gaining full intensity of concentration, sustaining it for a race, letting it down while the other division is racing, and then regaining it for the next race,” Leonard said.

    But Fauer and Custo Greig took advantage of the extended time on the water. So did the women’s A division pair of skipper Claire Dennis ’13 and crew Anna Han ’14, who are racing together for the first time this season.

    Though they started off slowly with 14th- and 10th-place finishes, Dennis and Han improved as the weekend progressed, clinching ninth place in the A division.

    “We didn’t do as well as we hoped, but we both learned a lot about what we have to work on,” Dennis said. “We’re learning how the other person sails and how to adapt to each other.”

    The Elis’ performance at the Pine Trophy Match Race Intersectional — a qualifying event on the Thames River in New London, Conn. for National Sloop Championships — was also an exercise in building chemistry and adapting. Not only is the event sailed on four-person boats that must be sailed differently than the dinghies in which Yale practices, but its format is also different than typical collegiate competition.

    Almost all regattas, including both the Harry Anderson and Toni Deutsch Trophies this weekend, are fleet races in which all boats face each other in a series of races. In match racing, however, two boats go head to head at a time, and performance is measured in wins and losses instead of according to place. That difference makes tactics entirely different in match racing than in fleet racing.

    “They’re almost like different sports,” Leonard said. “It’s almost like the difference between pole vaulting and marathoning.”

    The notoriously shifty winds on the Thames further complicated the race. Leonard said that, in one race, Yale was leading by a comfortable margin when the wind shifted 180 degrees. The team could not recover, and ended up losing.

    Still, Yale fought its way to a 9­-4 record overall, including a 4–3 record on the first day and a 5–1 record on the second. The first day’s results put the Elis in a four-way tie for second place in the field. But tiebreaking procedure went against the team, and it were relegated to the regatta’s second tier for Sunday’s races.

    Behind Morris’ work as skipper and a crew that included Max Nickbarg ’14 — a match racing veteran — and Amanda Salvesen ’14 and Rob Struckett ’12 — who has experience on bigger boats — lifted the Elis to a dominant second day performance and, with it, a spot in New England Sloop Championships in two weeks.

    “It’s difficult because Yale doesn’t own any big boats for us to practice in,” said Morris, who had only one weekend of practice with his crew before heading to Rhode Island. “But we put in a good effort and came close to the top. Hopefully we can contend at New Englands.”

    While the women were racing a grueling schedule and their teammates were sailing unfamiliar sloops, Segerblom and B division skipper Cam Cullman ’13 were racing in the familiar waters off their boathouse in Branford. The location did not make sailing easy, however, and Segerblom said that tricky winds kept him and the whole fleet inconsistent all day.

    “Had you asked me when I got off the water, I wouldn’t have guessed that I had won,” he said.

    As the difficult winds picked up during Sunday’s late races, Leonard decided to make changes at crew in order to increase the weight in each boat. May took over for Benedict in Segerblom’s boat and Katherine Gaumond ’15 took the place of Genoa Warner ’12 alongside Coleman.

    The coed and women’s team will send sailors to regattas in Massachusetts, New York and New Hampshire next weekend.

  7. SAILING | Despite Irene damage, regatta will go on

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    Two weeks ago, the sailing team was surveying the damage Hurricane Irene wrought on its boathouse. On Saturday, the team will kick off its latest quest for the national championship from that very boathouse.

    Some of the top sailors on the No. 5 coed team will host 20 other schools on Saturday and Sunday in the Harry Anderson Trophy, their only home regatta of the season. Meanwhile, coed captain Joseph Morris ’12 and three crew will travel to the Coast Guard Academy for the qualifying rounds of the national sloop championships. Finally, the No. 1 women’s team will send four of its top sailors to Boston to defend its high preseason ranking.

    “This opening weekend will show not only what our strengths are, but also our weaknesses,” Morris said. “Hopefully we can build on what we learn.”

    While Morris is racing in an unfamiliar boat — sloop championships are held in three- and four-person boats, while the vast majority of collegiate racing uses two-person boats called 420s and FJs — women’s captain Margot Benedict ’12 will provide veteran leadership in familiar waters. She will crew for Chris Segerblom ’14 in one of Yale’s 420s at the Harry Anderson, while Cameron Cullman ’13 will skipper the other with Genoa Warner ’12.

    Those four will try to reclaim the trophy the team last won in 2009. Winning will be no easy matter: five of the visiting teams are ranked in the national top ten, including No. 1 Boston College and No. 3 Roger Williams.

    B.C. is coming off a victory at the 2011 Dinghy National Championship, but graduated many of the top sailors from that team; Yale, on the other hand, graduated none of the skippers who sailed at nationals.

    The participants at the Harry Anderson trophy will sail in sight of dozens of badly damaged houses along the coast of the Long Island Sound. Hurricane Irene, which passed through the area at high tide, lifted waves through the first floor of many low-lying houses.

    The Elis are accustomed to storms, and have a process in place for pulling their two docks — each of which weighs about 3,000 pounds — out of the water when they expect bad weather. The team floats the docks to their boat ramp, places PVC pipes underneath them, then gradually rolls the docks over the pipes and out of the water.

    “It’s like Egyptian slave labor,” Segerblom said.

    Despite the sailors’ best preparations before the hurricane, it carried water as far ashore as the Yale boathouse and boat storage shed. The doors of the shed were ripped off, and six FJs were carried out by the water. All six washed up on shore nearby and were returned intact, but with cosmetic damage, by neighbors.

    The waves also made their way up to the boathouse, badly damaging the base of its walls before draining away. Both the boathouse and the home of head coach Zachary Leonard ’89 lost electricity and running water. When visiting teams arrive for the Harry Anderson regatta’s 9:30 a.m. start on Saturday, they will see a boathouse with sides made of two colors: bright tan for the three feet at its base where the shingling was stripped away and has been replaced in the past week, and dark grey above that, where the old shingling remains.

    The boats that will be used for the regatta, however, were not damaged, and Leonard said the team is ready to play host.

    While Benedict and her teammates race in the same waters they practice in each week, four sailors from the women’s team will take on the notoriously tricky winds on the Charles River at the Toni Deutsch Trophy regatta, hosted by MIT. The winds on the Charles are known to shift frequently and unpredictably, skipper Marlena Fauer ’14 said. Fauer and crew Eugenia Custo Greig ’14 will race in the B division, while Claire Dennis ’13 will skipper Yale’s top boat with Anna Han ’14 as her crew.

    Because of their No. 1 ranking, the four will be sailing with targets on their backs. Still, Fauer said that she is mostly focused on returning to racing form in preparation for a long season.

    “There’s a little pressure on us to perform to the level people are expecting,” she said. “But first we have to work out the kinks.”

    All three regattas begin at 9:30 a.m. Saturday and go through Sunday.

  8. SAILING | Women qualify for nationals

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    The No. 3 women’s sailing team is headed to nationals.

    A fourth-place finish at the New England Championships qualified the women’s team for the ICSA Women’s National Championships to be held from May 23–26 in Cascade Locks, Ore. Meanwhile, the No. 8 coed team took fifth at the Thompson Trophy and fifth at the O’Toole Trophy.

    In Bethel Point, Maine, the women’s team needed a top-eight finish at the New England Championships to secure a spot at the national competition. Skipper Claire Dennis ’13 and crew Heather May ’13 placed fourth in the A division. On Saturday, the pair looked strong with two wins and five other top-six finishes in the day’s eight races. Skipper Marlena Fauer ’14 and crew Eugenia Custo Greig ’14 used four top-four results to earn fifth place in the B division. Sunday, two A division races were completed before the breeze vanished. After a long wait and some rain, the regatta was called off, and officials nullified the two A division races due to the lack of matching B division ones.

    With the finish, the Elis qualified to compete in the ICSA Women’s National Championships in Oregon. The women’s team won the championship two years ago. Last year, a lack of wind all weekend forced the cancellation of the National Semifinals in Wisconsin.

    At Connecticut College, members of the coed team competed for the Thompson Trophy. Skipper Chris Segerblom ’14 and crew Amanda Salvesen ’14 struggled to find consistency on Saturday with a 17th place finish in the fifth race. Still, they ended the day on a high note with first and second place finishes in the final two races. Five top-10s on Sunday gave the pair a fifth-place result in the A division. Cam Cullman ’13 and Isabel Elliman ’12 sailed to second place in the B division. The two finished with seven top-fives in the regatta’s 13 races.

    In Newport, R.I., skipper Genoa Warner ’12 and crew Maddy Yozwiak ’14 battled shifty conditions to place in the top five in seven of the 10 A division races at the O’Toole Trophy. The strong results gave the boat a third place division finish. Nace Cohen ’14 and Sinead O’Brien ’13 placed fifth in the B division, giving the Bulldogs a fifth place overall finish.

    “[Warner] is very very experienced and very talented,” Yozwiak said. “And a lot of races were just luck because you could be heading towards what was a great puff at great velocity and it would turn out to be nothing.”

    Bulldogs sailors Max Nickbarg ’14, Will Feldman ’14, Rob Struckett ’12, Margot Benedict ’12, Stephanie Schuyler ’12 and Tatyana Camejo ’11 sailed at the Staake Trophy in Newport R.I. Very breezy and rainy conditions on Saturday and light conditions on Sunday meant two very different types of sailing. The Elis finished 1–6 and out of the top four.

    “We’re kind of a young developing team,” Benedict said. “[Saturday], we struggled a bit, but [Sunday] was much better. We were able to actually use the skills that we’ve earned over the year.”

    Next weekend, the coed team will compete at the 8th George Morris Trophy.

  9. SAILING | Women keep top-three streak alive

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    Despite holding the lead after Saturday’s racing, the No. 3 women’s sailing team finished second at the Women’s President’s Trophy on Sunday for the second weekend in a row.

    Yale could not hold onto its lead and finished five points behind Connecticut College. The women’s team now has placed in the top three in each of its five regattas this spring. Meanwhile, the No. 8 coed team grabbed fifth at the Marchiando Friis Team Race and sixth at the Admiral Alymer’s Trophy.

    Four sailors from the women’s team traveled to Boston, Mass. for the Women’s President’s Trophy on the Charles River. In the A division, skipper Claire Dennis ’13 and crew Heather May ’13 took Saturday by storm and finished with two second-place and three first-place finishes. Similarly, the B division boat of Genoa Warner ’12 and Stephanie Schuyler ’12 fought through challenging conditions to earn two wins amongst four top-threes in their six races. The strong performances gave the Bulldogs the overall lead and the advantage in each division. May credited the teammate mentality as the reason for their success.

    “For Claire and I, we went into this regatta with no pressure,” May said. “We went in with a practice mindset.”

    But Sunday brought more tough conditions, and the Bulldogs could not hold onto their overall lead. Dennis and May were unable break into the top-three in any of Sunday’s four races. Still, the pair managed to hold onto its divisional lead and top the A division by seven points. The B division boat of Warner and Schuyler failed to finish in the top-four in their four races. Unlike their teammates, the tough day pushed them out of the top spot in the B division and relegated the pair to fourth. As a result, the Elis dropped to second in the overall standings with 95 points, a mere five shy of first-place Connecticut College.

    The coed team sent Cam Cullman ’13, Joseph Morris ’12, Chris Segerblom ’14, Amanda Salvesen ’14, Blair Belling ’11 and Elizabeth Brim ’11 to the Marchiando Friis Team Race. Saturday, the team competed on Mystic Lake and used the shifty conditions to its advantage, finishing 8–4.

    “We had a good day,” Morris said. “We beat some of the better teams and maybe had one or two losses that we shouldn’t have had.”

    The second place finish moved the Elis into the gold fleet for Sunday’s racing along with the other top-four teams from Mystic Lake and the top-four teams that competed at MIT on Saturday. Sunday’s racing took place on the Charles River, but the Bulldogs were unable to replicate the same success that they had found at Mystic Lake and finished the day 7–7. The .500 record put the Elis in a tie for fourth with No. 12 Tufts and No. 7 Brown. The tie-breaking procedure pushed Brown ahead of the Bulldogs and gave Yale a fifth-place finish.

    “I don’t think that the conditions really affected how we did,” Morris said. “We had a pretty good morning. In the afternoon, we took a loss on consistency and starting and [also a lack] of being confident and staying calm during the races.”

    Another group of sailors made their way to Massachusetts Maritime for the Admiral Aylmer’s Trophy. Skipper Emily Billing ’13 and crew Margot Benedict ’12 represented Yale in the A division. The pairing earned 12 top-10s in the 14 races for a 10-place finish in the division. Marlena Fauer ’14 and Eugenia Custo Greig ’14 started off with three firsts and two seconds in the first seven races. But their strong early performance tailed off slightly on Sunday, and the two ended up second in the B division.

    “It was harder to catch up and we didn’t do as good of a job starting on Sunday as we did on Saturday,” Custo Greig said. “If you started in the back, your race would end up being guided by what other people were doing because you were trapped between boats and you weren’t able to make your own calls.”

    This weekend, the coed team will compete at the New England Dinghy Championships, at the 73rd Oberg Trophy and at Yale’s McNay Family Sailing Center in the Short Beach Invitational. The women’s team will travel to the Coast Guard Academy for the Women’s Emily Wick and Shrew Trophies.

  10. SAILING | Coed sailors win Ted Ferrarone title

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    Yale sailors found success close to home over the weekend, winning the Ted Ferrarone Team Race on Sunday.

    Six members of the No. 7 coed team captured the title in nearby Branford, Conn., after a tiebreaking race victory over second-place New York Maritime. Another delegation of sailors from the coed team finished sixth at the Southern New England Team Race. Representatives from the No. 2 women’s sailing team took second at the Dellenbaugh Women’s Trophy down the road at Brown University.

    The Ted Ferrarone title win is a step in the right direction for a coed team with national title aspirations.

    “I think the team is only going to get better as the season goes on,” said Andrew Kurzrok ’11, who competed for the Ted Ferrarone title-winning team. “Even this regatta was a huge help toward making us work together. I think that the gains are going to keep building on themselves.”

    Kurzrok, Rob Struckett ’12 and Max Nickbarg ’14 skippered with crews Anna Han ’14, Isabel Elliman ’12 and Tatyana Camejo ’11 and competed for the Ted Ferrarone title at Yale’s McNay Family Sailing Center in what Kurzrok described as “perfect conditions.”

    The regatta brought together six teams for a multiple-round competition. In the first round, the Bulldogs finished 4–1, with the only loss coming against New York Maritime. Fortunately for Yale, Maritime suffered two losses, giving the Bulldogs the best record at the end of round one. Another 4–1 finish in the second round and another loss to New York Maritime put the Elis at 8–2 overall. A perfect second round for Maritime meant that the two teams sat at 8–2 after two rounds. The Bulldogs entered the third round on Sunday with a day-opening matchup against Maritime.

    The Bulldogs won the third race against the Privateers. Because too much wind forced the cancellation of the regatta, that race acted as a tiebreaker for the top two schools, giving Yale the overall victory.

    “On Sunday, it was our first race of the day and we were really focused on beating [New York Maritime],” Kurzrok said. “We got the win, but we weren’t able to finish the round-robin because of the wind.”

    The Bulldogs’ full team racing lineup of skippers Cam Cullman ’13, Chris Segerblom ’14 and Joseph Morris ’12, and crews Eugenia Custo Greig ’14, Blair Belling ’11, Rafael Fernandez ’13, Amanda Salvesen ’14 and Elizabeth Brim ’11 competed in intense conditions at the Southern New England Team Race on the Thames River in New London, Conn.

    “It was really, really windy,” Cullman said. “There were some flips, a couple masts getting broken down, so it was pretty fun to be honest.”

    In addition to battling the conditions, the Bulldogs faced strong competition that included No. 2 Boston College, No. 4 Roger Williams, No. 6 Navy and No. 8 Harvard. The Bulldogs finished 9–6 overall with wins over Roger Williams, Navy and No. 10 Hobart & William Smith. However, a few mistakes led to too many losses, and Harvard’s 14–1 overall record gave the Crimson the win.

    “We were happy to pull out a sixth, and we were one win away from fourth,” Cullman said. “It was our first regatta together all as a team, so were happy to be sixth of 16 teams.”

    Throughout most of the season, the coed team has competed in fleet racing competitions, in which one boat from each school races in a specific division against representative boats from other schools. The coed team has had quite a bit of success in this format, finishing eighth in the Atlantic Coast Championships last November and winning several smaller regattas in the fall.

    But this past weekend, the coed team participated in two team racing regattas, in which three boats from one school compete head to head with three from another school. Team racing requires communication skills and teamwork, as three boats from each school are racing at a time. With freshman, sophomore and junior skippers, the members of the Yale team racing squad are still getting used to sailing with one another, but Cullman believes that they have potential.

    “We’re learning exceptionally fast because we have Zach Brown ’08 coaching us and he’s one of the best team racers in the world,” Cullman said. “The sky’s the limit.”

    In nearby Providence, R.I., the women’s team set its sights on the Dellenbaugh Women’s Trophy, a fleet racing event. In the A division, skipper Claire Dennis ’13 and crew Heather May ’13 got off to a slow start on Saturday, finishing outside the top eight in five of the first seven races.

    “I was kind of nervous to get back to fleet racing. I was obviously excited, but I wasn’t as comfortable on the start line and around the course tactically as I usually am,” Dennis said. “Our communication in the boat was a little off because we’ve been having to do a lot of different things with the team racing tactics.”

    The B division boat of Margot Benedict ’12 and Emily Billing ’13 surged with two race victories and five top fours in the first six races. However, both boats’ fortunes reversed on Sunday. The duo finished outside the top seven in four of the final six races.

    In Sunday’s A division racing, Dennis said she and May focused on the basics and acquired two wins and five top fours in their final six races. Dennis and May ended up fourth in the A division while Benedict and Billing combined for third in the B division. A strong showing by the Brown B division boat of Emily Dellenbaugh and Cecilia Strombeck secured the overall win for the Bears and relegated the Elis to second.

    Next weekend, the coed team will compete at the Marchiando Friis Trophy in Cambridge, Mass., the Admirals Aylmers in Buzzard’s Bay, Mass., and at the Kruger Cup in New London, Conn. The women’s team will join members of the coed team in Massachusetts, where they will compete in the President’s Trophy Intersectional on the Charles River.

    Correction: April 4, 2011

    An earlier version of this article misstated the reason the regatta ended early. The regatta was called off because it was too windy, not because of a lack of wind.

  11. SAILING | Sailors battle Ivies in the cold

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    In breezy, cold conditions along the Atlantic and with Ancient Eight bragging rights on the line, Bulldog sailors fell short of No. 8 Harvard in a battle of Ivy League sailing.

    The No. 7 Yale coed sailing team finished second in the Owen, Mosbacher and Knapp Trophy on Sunday in Kings Point, N.Y. with 141 points to the Crimson’s 118. Other Eli sailors placed eighth at the Szambecki Trophy, 14th at the Southern Series Two, and 16th at the Boston Dinghy Cup.

    The Mosbacher Trophy serves as the de facto Ivy League title because an official title does not exist. The

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    Owen Trophy is awarded to the top overall finisher, while the Knapp trophy goes to the best finish among Harvard, Yale and Princeton.

    Cameron Cullman ’13 skippered in the A division with crews Amanda Salvesen ’14 and Blair Belling ’11. Cullman and Amanda Salveson ’14 got off to a fast start in the 420 boat on Saturday, as the duo claimed three firsts and a second in the first six races.

    However, Sunday proved more challenging. Cullman, who skippered with Belling, finished in the top five in only three of eight races, leading to a second place finish in the A division.

    In the B division, skipper Emily Billing ’13 and crew Rafael Fernandez ’13 worked together on Saturday en route to claiming two race wins and no finish below seventh among the 19 teams.

    “Saturday was very windy, which was exacerbated by the fact that King’s Point has flat top mains,” Billing said in a press release. “It was the first time that I had ever sailed with flat top mains, which made it quite tricky. We worked really hard to be consistent and to avoid taking big risks.”

    In lighter conditions on Sunday, new skipper Joseph Morris ’12 and crew Salvesen, who took over the B division boat, tore through the first six races, finishing with four race wins, a second and a fourth. Billing resumed her role as skipper for the last two races and, despite closing out the final two contests for a second-place B division finish, could not supplant the Harvard Crimson, which bested Yale for all three trophies.

    Meanwhile, Chris Segerblom ’14, Elizabeth Brim ’11, Claire Dennis ’13, Heather May ’13, Max Nickbarg ’14 and Anna Han ’14 made the long trip to Norfolk, Va. for the Szambecki Trophy, a team racing event. The Bulldogs were forced to battle through heavy winds and sleet that cloaked the competition. In the two-round, head-to-head format, the Bulldogs struggled to a 1–13 finish against the seven other schools, with their lone win coming over Old Dominion in the second round.

    “Since we’re so young, we’re still putting different people in for the team race team and learning how to work with each other,” May said. “It just takes some time to put the pieces toether. It’s definitely a work in progress.”

    Down the road in Rhode Island, Emily Farr ’14, Maddy Yozwiak ’14, Nace Cohen ’14 and Will Feldman ’14 worked together for a 14th place finish in the Southern Series Two. The A division boat grabbed 16th while the B division boat took 11th.

    “No matter how many layers you put on, you’re still going to be cold,” Yozwiak said in an interview. “As the day goes on, it just becomes harder and harder to do everything as well as you were doing at the beginning of the day.”

    A pack of Bulldogs also made the trek to Massachusetts for the 82nd Boston Dinghy Cup, the oldest trophy in collegiate sailing. In the A division, Rob Struckett ’12 and Isabel Elliman ’12 grabbed two third-place finishes and 11th place in the division. Skipper Marlena Fauer ’14 and crew Eugenia Custo Greig ’14 combined for five top-fives and 13th in the B division. Nathan Stevens ’11 and Sinead O’Brien ’13 finished 18th in the C division.

    This weekend, the coed team will compete at the 14th Southern New England Team Race Intersectional, the BU Trophy and the Mystic Lake Team Racing Invitational. The women’s team will resume competition at the 25th Women’s Brad Dellenbaugh Trophy.