Light winds and scheduling conflicts plagued the Dartmouth sailing team this weekend. Although everyone agreed that the warm weather was wonderful, it brought with it a high pressure zone and little wind over the weekend. Despite not having many exciting races this weekend, the sailors are happy that Lake Mascoma has thawed from the relative heat wave. With the last few weekends' sweeping victories, the team has jumped in rank, with the coed team moving from 10th to second on the national level. The women's team also bumped up, moving from an overall ranking of sixth to fifth.
This weekend at Kings Point, N.Y., the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy hosted the largest intersectional of the weekend, the Admiral's Cup. Twenty teams from around the nation battled it out in the eight races run in light winds on Saturday. Dartmouth was in second place overall after the first four sets. However, they had a rough afternoon, dropping in what turned out to be the final four races. There was no wind on Sunday, so the team of Erik Storck '07, Clementine James '05, Jimmy Attridge '07, Andrew Loe '06, Peter Fleming '05, Killarney Loufek '07, Todd Whitehead '06 and Mike Wilde '07 never had a chance to come back from the second half of Saturday. Dartmouth finished the regatta eighth overall.
Also this weekend, Brown University hosted the 19th annual Dellenbaugh Trophy, with 18 women's teams sailing a total of 30 races over two days. Although there was a little more wind at Brown, it was inconsistent at best. Dartmouth's usual women's team was disrupted by the loss of A division skipper Lauren Padilla '05 on Saturday, as she was taking the one-day-only National Engineer-in-Training exam. With the usual team of Padilla and Liz Hyon '05 off the water, the B division team of Emily East '06 and Elizabeth Kreter '05 stepped it up to nearly win the A division.
East and Kreter were tied for first place going into the last race, when they inadvertently thought they had started early, causing them to re-start. This cost them the race, and placed them in fourth place in A division. The B division was sailed by a combination of Adele Wilhelm '08 and Hyon on Saturday and then Padilla and Wilhelm on Sunday. With the mixed teams, the B division finished 11th, putting Dartmouth in sixth place overall.
At the University of Rhode Island for the Moody Trophy, the Dartmouth team of Ben Sampson '08, Meaghan Ferrick '07, Garrett Holmes '05, and Debbie Sperling '06 had decidedly inconsistent days. While both A and B divisions finished 10th out of 18 teams, placing the team in 11th overall, the results belie how "up and down" the 30 races were for the Big Green. Sperling commented, "Though each boat won a day of racing, we also both lost the second day. It just goes to show how important consistency is in winning over such a long weekend. Despite the tough finishes, the sailing site was a nice change. Teams brought grills, lawn chairs and couches to enjoy the sun and the beach during their off-sets." In another light-air venue over the weekend, the Dartmouth team of Erik Johnson '06, Tegan Vay '07, Karl Johnson '06, and Sophie Ryan '06 had trouble overcoming the lack of races on Sunday. The Boston University Trophy was also only able to get off eight races on Saturday for the 16 teams in attendance.
The team followed suit with those at the Admiral's Cup, starting Saturday strong and finishing on a low note. Unfortunately, they didn't get a chance to make up the deficit on Sunday. Karl Johnson commented, "We were looking great until the very end of the racing on Saturday, where we had a few tough races. We really needed Sunday to make up for them, but unfortunately the lack of wind cancelled racing for the day and we didn't get our chance to come back." The team finished in seventh place overall.
