Three freshmen sailed away with a key victory in Maryland over the weekend, as Ben Sampson '08 and his crewmates Betsy Bryant '08 and Andrew Geffken '08 competed in 16 races against the 16 best freshman teams on the Atlantic Coast and won A-division by over 10 points.
The second half of the freshman team included Luke Hathaway '08, Adele Wilhelm '08 and Aisha Stewart '08, who finished seventh in B-division, bringing the Big Green to an overall second-place finish for the regatta.
The wind at the U.S. Naval Academy this weekend ranged from almost nil at three knots to a full breeze at 12 knots, necessitating the use of "heavy" and "light" crews by Sampson and Hathaway. The wind blew out of the southwest on Saturday and the east on Sunday.
Navy is located at the mouth of the Severn River, where it meets the Chesapeake Bay, so an easterly wind means big chop and a steady breeze from the bay. Westerlies, in contrast, will bring calmer water and a shifty breeze from the river. The changing winds at this competition meant the freshmen competed in just about every possible condition in collegiate sailing. Typically, any given team may have an advantage over other teams in a regatta due to the prevailing wind conditions, as one team may be good in big breeze while another does well in heavy chop.
The fact that Dartmouth was able to dominate in such a wide variety of conditions was a big boost for the Big Green's status in the east. Dartmouth hopes to show its depth this coming weekend in the women's and co-ed ACC's, where good showings would bode well for national championships in the spring.
A little closer to home at Harvard this weekend, Dartmouth unleashed the better part of its upperclassmen force at the Horn Trophy. Since there were so few regattas this weekend, teams of Dartmouth sailors split days for the regatta so that everyone could get in a practice day for next week's ACC's.
Saturday's A, B, C, and D divisions (yes, it's a huge regatta) were sailed respectively by Lauren Padilla '05, Liz Hyon '05, Todd Whitehead '06, Laura Shienkopf '07, Paul Durkee '06, Tegan Vay '07, Clementine James '05 and Erik Storck '07.
Their replacements for Sunday were Emily East '06, Kate Hacker '07, Garrett Holmes '05, Deborah Sperling '06, Erik Johnson '06, Shienkopf, Killarney Loufek '07, and Elisabeth Kreter '05. The small army totaling 15 sailors wound up fourth in A, third in B, eighth in C, second in D, and fourth overall in the weekend's 40 races.
With the local temperatures dropping, the team is looking forward to a week in Neoprene followed by a warm weekend for the ACC competitions.
