The Big Green sailors had another chance to escape the chill of Hanover down in Charleston, S.C., this past weekend for the Bob Bravier Team Race held at the College of Charleston. Conditions in Charleston this weekend were about the exact opposite of last weekend's, when the sailors finished well despite a very light air regatta.
This weekend, both Saturday and Sunday saw breezes of over 12 knots. (This means it was all full on spray-in-the-face sailing.) To add to the excitement of spraying water and college coeds in bathing suits, this particular regatta was also run in the dynamic team race format. To recall, team racing pits two colleges against each other one on one, with each team sailing a 'team' of three boats. This is different from fleet racing, where each college gets just one boat and sails against everyone else at the same time in one large "fleet," hence the name.
Team racing tends to have a lot more action than fleet racing, as the teams use their boats like chess-pieces to set up picks, blocks and other bumper-boat moves on the water to help their teammates win. Team race regattas also tend to be smaller than fleet regattas, and this weekend's was no exception, with only eight teams at the first intersectional team race of the season. Dartmouth sent a team of Andrew Loe '06, Elisabeth Kreter '05, Peter Fleming '05, Liz Hyon '05, Erik Storck '06 and Clementine James '05 down to try their hands at team racing, all of whom were coming off a three-month sailing hiatus.
The team had a few kinks to work out, going 0-3 on Saturday morning, but the team came on strong later in the day, winning all four of their races in the afternoon. That momentum carried them through to the final four on Sunday, where they ended up finishing second overall for the regatta. Kreter commented, "We were a little shaky Saturday morning because we hadn't sailed in three months but we picked it up as the weekend went on. [Boston College] set themselves up as the team to beat, but all our races with them were really close and we have a rematch in late march after spring break so that should be a better test of our ability."
The team members said they look forward to spring break training and really getting back on the water. James noted that all the team really needs is practice time.
"I think that after a couple of months of practice we will be the team to beat," James said. "This is the best finish we have had at this point in the season in a long time, and I think it bodes well for our season."
The team's next round of competition will begin in mid-March, while they are on their spring trip, with the St. Mary's Women's Intersectional and the Truxt at Navy.
