Despite the slight break in activity over the summer months, as the new freshmen class has slipped onto campus with its usual whirlwind, the Dartmouth sailing team has also re-taken the New England waters by storm. The team's busy weekend was highlighted by a victory Saturday in the Western Series hosted by the Big Green and also included mixed results in the New England Women's Singlehand Championships and the Hood Trophy.
This weekend opened with the women's team sending an armada of four skippers to the unrestricted New England Women's Singlehanded Championships at Boston College, looking to send some of the Dartmouth ladies on a trip to Hawaii for the Women's Singlehanded Nationals at the end of the fall term. In a typical weekend for New England, the winds ranged anywhere from zero knots to a full 12 knots. Twelve knots tends to be near the full-on hiking limit of the light-weight ladies sailing the Lasers this weekend -- boats normally reserved for the larger portion of the population, usually requiring around 200 pounds to control the vessel in high winds.
Needless to say, the results were just as varied, with team captain Emily East '06 outright winning a few races, as well as falling towards the back as the winds turned light and unfavorable. Unfortunately for East, she posted a 25th place in the second to last race on Saturday as she inadvertently fouled another boat in light winds. After spinning her Laser through 720 degrees to exonerate herself, she found that the fleet had passed, and she dropped from 10th in the race to 25th.
So after 28 races in two days of variable winds, East '06, Kendall Reiley '09, C. Hathaway-Zepeda '09 and Adele Wilhelm '08 finished fifth, sixth, ninth and 17th respectively. Unfortunately, only the top four women qualify for Nationals this year, so Harvard and Yale will be sending women to the Aloha State as Dartmouth prepares to qualify for Dingy (double-handed) Nationals.
Also on the plate this weekend was the annual Hood Trophy sailed at Tufts University on the famed Mystic Lake. The conditions this weekend at Tufts were reported to be highly frustrating, as the wind never seemed to settle down and often simply shut off. Combating the elements and competitors who sported a brand new fleet of Larks complete with carbon spars and cassette rudders, Dartmouth sailors Erik Storck '07, Killarney Loufek '07, Todd Whitehead '06 and Laura Sheinkopf '07 placed fourth in A-division, tenth in B-division and eighth overall. Dartmouth looks forward to testing its rivals' new equipment in high breeze in the famously ill-at-ease Larks in future weekends.
Not to be outdone by the Jumbos, the Big Green hosted the Western Series this weekend out on Lake Mascoma and swept the 16 boat fleet. Senior sailors Karl Johnson '06 and Charlotte Lord '06 won six of the eight races held, winning many by over a leg. B-division sailors Andrew Geffken '08 and Anne Megargel '09 followed in second place for over half the races as well. Dartmouth ended up winning the regatta with less than half the points of second placed Vermont.
