The 2005 Reed Trophy hosted by the U.S. Coast Guard Academy for 13 teams from around New England served as the New England Women's Championships. The Dartmouth women's team brought its A-game and qualified for Women's Nationals in Texas at the end of the spring term.
Much like any other sport, U.S. Collegiate Sailing is divided into a number of smaller "sectional" divisions, New England being the largest and most competitive of the sections. Evidence of this is the typical "New England Sweep" at Nationals, where a majority of the top five places in each National competition (Women's, Coed's, Team Race, etc.) are held by teams from New England. For this reason, the New England National Qualifiers (like the women's regatta this weekend) can be an even closer contest of skill than at Nationals.
This year, the top five women's teams from New England advanced to Nationals, while there were clearly seven teams in the running for the top five spots right up until the last race. Non-qualifying teams of Boston College and Tufts trailed fifth place qualifier Connecticut College by only two and eight points out of 26 races respectively. Placing third overall after the weekend Clementine James '05 commented, "In my four years at Dartmouth, this is the best I have ever seen the women's team do at the New England championships. I think that with another month of practice under our belts we will be able to dominate Nationals. We look forward to practicing on Mascoma, which is probably the New England site most similar to Austin, Tex."
The forecast for this weekend was for big winds and heavy rains, so the team took two sets of crew down for the races on Friday night. Lauren Padilla '05 took her usual crew Liz Hyon '05 as well as storm crew Adele Wilhelm '08 for the A division. B division skipper Emily East '06 took Elisabeth Kreter '05 for midgit speed, and Clementine James '05 for flattening power. As Saturday started out with light wind, the teams of Padilla/Hyon and East/Kreter started out the day, sailing in FJ's and 420's respectively.
As the wind picked up, the rain started to "come down in buckets" according to the Coast Guard race committee. Wilhelm and James jumped in the boats to place the team solidly in the top five. After seven races, (half of the regatta's expected 13 races, as there were 13 teams in attendance) the divisions switched boats with A now sailing 420's and B in FJ's. As 420's are slightly larger than FJ's with decreased rolling moment (that's engineering talk, let's just say 420's are more "stable" for you land lovers), the skippers were thankful to have such a large bench to pull from such that they could have the perfect crew for the changing conditions. "I was so glad to have both [James] and [Kreter] there to sail because each of them pulled through when the conditions were right for them to sail," said East. "It gave our team a huge advantage over those that only had one size crew who got no rest through the day."
At the conclusion of Saturday, the Big Green was just one point out of third place, with qualification up in the air. The team was feeling really solid and well rested and poured it on Sunday morning opening the first two races of the day with first place finishes in each division.
Through two more races East and James showed what they were made of, sailing away from the fleet posting up two first and one second place finishes in the last three races, coming from behind to win B division outright in the very last race! Padilla and crew sailed solidly through the end of Sunday, finishing up fifth overall in A division, bringing the team into third place overall. Other New England Teams to qualify this weekend include winning team Harvard, as well as Yale, Brown and Connecticut College.
The Big Green sailors are looking forward to Coed and Team Race National Qualifiers in the coming weekends. Keep your fingers crossed for the first ever "Green Sweep" at Collegiate Sailing Nationals 2005.
