The Dartmouth sailing team had an impressive weekend in all aspects of the sport, winning men's, women's and freshmen regattas for a total of five victories, and finishing the weekend's competition ranked second in the nation. When all was said and done, the Big Green had earned he a second-place national ranking.
The Big Green left other teams in its wake at Amherst College, the Masschusetts Institute of Techology and Yale, Tufts and Harvard Universities over two days of intense racing.
The first day of the women's Intersectional Regatta at Yale found the sailors fighting gusts of wind nearing 30 knots and waves approaching five feet. These extreme conditions forced competitors to abandon racing for the day and pick it up again the following day.
When racing commenced again on Sunday, the team of Thalia Pascalidies '03, Lauren Padilla '05, Clementine James '05 and Elisabeth Kreter '05 sailed five races in each of two divisions and won the regatta to beat out Brown in second, Yale in third and 17 other teams.
"The Yale women's was a very competitive regatta, so we were very excited to do so well," Kreter said.
"Our group sails so well because we have so much fun together."
More than just another win for the lady sailors, the win at Yale qualifed the Dartmouth women's sailors for the women's Atlantic Coast Championships to be held on Nov. 15 and 16 at Connecticut College, according to coach Brian Doyle.
The Western Series Five Regatta at Amherst pitted the Big Green against five other teams. Despite conditions which coach Brian Stanford described as "shifty," the team of Todd Whitehead '06, Clare O'Keeffe '06, Paul Durkee '06 and Andrea Laurman '06 won both divisions of the all-freshman event. Amherst came in second, and McGill University scored a third place tie with the University of Vermont.
On a windy Saturday at MIT ogy, four juniors turned in a tremendous performance, helping the Big Green win both divisions. Jon Kling '04, Deanna Fernandez '04, Graham Roth'04, and Allison Swindell '04 led the Big Green to a regatta victory over 14 other teams.
Their first place finish brought Dartmouth to the top of the season standings. The previous Metro Series leader, Tufts, finished 11th in the regatta.
In what was arguably the most significant regatta of the weekend, Dartmouth proved too much for the other 12 teams, upsetting Harvard and Boston University in four divisions to win the Wood Trophy for the first time in over a decade.
The winning eight-sailor team consisted of Greg Hammond '04, Sarah Fink '05, Graham Roth '04, Allison Swindell '04, Emily East '06, Christina Duncan '06, Jon Kling '04 and Deanna Fernandez '04.
"It was a team effort this past weekend at a four divisional regatta at Harvard," Swindell said.
Along with incredible performances at Yale, Harvard and MIT, the Dartmouth sailing team also posted a pair of solid third-place finishes. At another regatta at Tufts University, the Lane Team Race, sailors Peter Fleming '05, Liz Hyon '05, Garret Holmes '05, Anna Weinberg '05, Andrew Loe '06 and Debbie Sperling '06 came in third behind Tufts and MIT.
At the Sloop New England Championships, the team of Scott Hogan '04, Karl Johnson '06 and Erik Johnson '06 posted a respectable third-place finish behind Brown and the Univerity of Rhode Island.
Unfortunately, however, this finish places the team just barely out of qualification for the National Championships in sloops. When asked about the race, a discouraged Karl Johnson said, "we rode [the sloop] long and hard, but in the end it just didn't happen."
As it turned out, though, the weekend was more about what did happen than what did not.
The Big Green sailors look to keep this momentum going into this weekend's regattas.
