The Dartmouth sailing team ended up in a three-way tie for first place with St. Mary's and Harvard in the Yale Team race last weekend after inclement weather forced the competition to end prematurely. The victory bumped Dartmouth up three notches to fifth in the Sailing World College rankings.
Blizzard-like conditions and winds gusting up to 25 miles an hour prevented any possible tiebreaker, forcing the three teams, who each finished the competition with 10 wins and four losses, to share the win.
"Our coach told us, 'if you have it, wear it,'" said team member Cindy Keppel '02. "Once you get out on the water, [though], you tend to forget that it is cold and snowing."
The Big Green crew on hand, which consisted of Ryan Mahoney '02/Liza Cowan '00, Kevin Horrigan '02/Keppel, and Erin Maxwell '01/Leslie Sandberg '01 had a strong showing against the top teams, sweeping both top-ranked St. Mary's and 13th-ranked King's Point in their two head-to-head races with each team.
They also split with 10th-ranked Tufts and 14-ranked Boston College, and went undefeated against Yale and UVM. Harvard gave them their most trouble for the weekend, claiming both races.
"We have spent a lot of energy over the last few weeks discussing team racing strategy, and that really helped us," said Keppel.
Meanwhile, the team of Dan Herlihy '00/Katie Lyndon '01, Patrick Hogan '01/Erin Myers '00, Marcus Coe '00/Carli Prior '01 and Kelsey Morgan '02 took fourth place at the Friis Trophy at Tufts. The wind here was even stronger, gusting up to over 40 MPH at times.
Critical errors such as getting snagged on trees near the shore put the team out of contention for first. Harvard ended up taking the top spot, followed by Tufts and MIT.
