The Dartmouth sailing teams had another successful weekend as the co-eds claimed the inaugural Lake Champlain Trophy, and the women's team qualified for the Atlantic Coast Championships.
The Big Green finished the two-day, ten-team Lake Champlain regatta with 41 points, besting Tufts' 62, Rhode Island's 66 and Vermont's 81.
The Lake Champlain Regatta, hosted by the University of Vermont, was marked by heavy winds and high seas.
After the first day of sailing, the Big Green pairing of skipper John Diskant '04 and crew Clementine James '05 stood on top of the standings in Division A, although only three points clear of second-place Rhode Island. In B Division, skipper Scott Linthicum '04 and crew Greg Hill '02 finished Saturday's races in a three-way tie for second with Tufts and Vermont " four points behind Rhode Island.
The combined A and B Division scores had the Big Green in second place overall heading into the final day of action.
On Sunday, as the winds hit upwards of 20 knots, Dartmouth shifted its sails into high gear. The Big Green won all eight of the day's races, the last coming in exciting fashion.
Linthicum and Hill were fourth coming around the final mark, but "by ooching [humping the mast to thrust the boat forward] we were able to get the boat planing down the huge waves quickly," Hill said. "We rode the waves better than URI, Tufts or UVM and so sailed a lower angle to the finish line."
Holding a tighter line on the last leg, they edged the fleet by a nose, thereby ensuring the team's perfect day. The Sunday sweep put Linthicum and Hill in first place, five points ahead of their nearest competition. In the A Division, Diskant and James rode their four Sunday victories to a 16-point cushion over second-place Tufts, propelling the Big Green to its winning score of 41.
In women's action, Jen Morgan '02 led the Big Green at Connecticut College as the Big Green claimed third-place overall, qualifying for the Atlantic Coast Championships.
Captain Morgan and crew Cindy Keppel '02 took second place in A Division, while Thalia Pascalidies '03 and Amanda Dwelley '03 placed third among the Bs. Old Dominion won the 18-school regatta, carrying home the Stu Nelson Trophy along with their ticket to the ACCs. Brown, finishing second, also qualified.
The Atlantic Coast Championships will be hosted by the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., on November 9-10.
In other action around the East Coast, the coeds took fifth place at the Hoyt Trophy in Providence. Dartmouth got tangled up early on as Scott Hogan '04 and Christina Lyndon '04 got caught on an anchor line during one of Saturday's races. Despite outpacing the field on Sunday, Hogan and Lyndon, along with B-division sailors Kevin Horrigan '02 and Amo Loring '04, only bounced back to fifth.
Harvard hoisted the Hoyt, followed by Yale, Brown and Hobart.