After a season of dealing with key injuries, a stubbornly frozen lake and an annoying-yet-adorable newspaper correspondent, the Dartmouth sailing team is finally reaping its rewards, and deservedly so. This past weekend's 63rd Annual New England Dinghy Championships was an opportunity for the Big Green to accomplish something that they hadn't since 2001: complete a sweep of bids to all three National Championships in women's, team and coed racing.
At the fabulous University of Rhode Island Wheeler Beach facility, the site of the New England Dinghy Championships, the sailors were presented with the daunting task of placing in the top four of the full 18-team fleet that represented the best teams in New England.
Inspiring the team was the return of the incomparable Scott Hogan '04 from a season-long ankle injury. In a testament to their unity as a team, fellow sailors Todd Whitehead '06 and Jimmy Attridge '07 actually carried Hogan into the boat in order to keep his ankle brace dry. That's love, people.
Hogan quickly shook off the rust and, with the help of the poise and skill of veteran Amo Loring '04, the pair placed first in A-division through nine races. This marks the third consecutive year that Loring has won her division at this event.
In almost a mirror image of A-division, Erick Storck '07 came back from his own long-standing injury to place second in B-division, along with the timeless Clementine "Sweeter Than a Tangerine" James '05. The combined scores put Dartmouth in first place overall to win the last regular regatta of the season. It also qualified the co-ed team for the National Championships coming up in Cascade Lakes, Ore., and was the final element needed to secure Dartmouth's first three-bid season since the current seniors were but wee first-years back in the day.
James said, "We refuse to be happy with second place any longer and are planning on stepping it up and thrashing at Nationals. We've been working out, practicing hard and are prepared to destroy some other teams in Oregon in just a couple of weeks."
Loring added, "This weekend's New Englands proved that we really are one of the strongest teams, if not the strongest, in New England. With both Scott Hogan and Erik Storck coming back from major injuries and our lake just thawed, we were able to dominate the New Englands. I think that says a lot about our potential to fare well at Nationals."
Truly, qualifying for all three National Championships is a monumental accomplishment for the sailors, and it wasn't even the only good news from the weekend. The great performance at the New England Championships earned the participants spots on the prestigious All-New England Team. Hogan was ranked as the number two skipper while Erick Storck '07 earned the tenth overall ranking in the same category. For crews, Amo Loring '04 is the number one crew in New England, with Clementine James '05 complementing her nicely at sixth.
With the regular season over, the sailors are buckling down for two intensive weeks of training to make a run at all three National titles coming up in the first week of June. And, as no sailing recap is complete without some sort of shameless self-plug by yours truly, I would like to say that this will be my final article for the sailors, as I am graduating in June.
It has been an honor to report weekly on the single most winning team at Dartmouth and I thank you for the opportunity to do so. Congratulations to all the seniors who have worked so hard to get to this point and a special thanks to Commodore Jon Kling '04, without whom none of this would have happened. This is Jimmy Lamb, signing off.
