The Dartmouth College sailing team has sent competitors to events across New England over the past two weeks. The team's hard training and long season have begun to pay dividends, as the past two weekends have largely been defined by successful sailing.
This past weekend, members of the team traveled to Harvard for the Horn Trophy. Saturday's races were exciting with a steady wind and many capsizes. Sunday, however, brought more unpredictable breezes. Dartmouth finished a very respectable third behind only the University of Vermont and Harvard. In the A division, Kendall Reiley '09 and crew Kathy Oprea '10 beat out a strong Tufts boat to finish third. In the B division, the Dartmouth boat captained by Adele Wilhelm '08 finished eighth. Matt Cohen '10 captained his C division boat to a fifth place finish just behind Boston College. The highlight came in the D division in which Ben Bier '10 skippered his boat to a first-place finish.
"I felt good going into this regatta," Bier said. "The training the week before had been real solid. I knew we could put together a great finish. I'm just glad it worked out so well for the team."
The success of the Big Green sailors was not limited to this past weekend. The weekend of Oct. 27 offered more top three finishes. The Victorian Coffee Urn regatta, which also took place at Harvard, saw Dartmouth sailors take home a season best second place finish. Becca Dellenbaugh '10 and Sarah Johnston '09 sailed masterfully to a second place finish in the A division. While the B division did not fair as well, the combined result was enough to capture the second place result.
The past few weeks of the fall season have not been filled with all positives. The Atlantic Coast Freshman Regatta hosted by Roger Williams University did not play into the hands of the new Dartmouth sailors. With racing cancelled on Saturday because of weather and a decent breeze for sailing on Sunday, freshman sailors were out to prove their abilities. The Dartmouth freshmen struggled, finishing in last place. The team from Brown took home the first place finish. Rookies Ed Glackin '11, Tess Korndorf '11, Sam Andrew '11 and Heather Kluk '11 will look to keep up their training and bounce back from the rough finish.
Even with the struggles in the Freshman Regatta, the team advanced to a 12th place overall coed ranking in the New England Intercollegiate Sailing Association. The team is within striking distance of 11th-place Boston University. Boston College, Yale and Brown make up the top three in the NEISA. With only one more weekend left in the regular season, Big Green sailors will look to finish on a high note before possible postseason berths and a long winter off season.
"We're really going to focus for this last week," Ben Sampson '08 said. "Overall, I'm really happy with where we are at the end of this fall. I see a lot of potential for the spring and maybe this post season. The winter is long up here so we really need to make the most of these last weeks of training before the lake freezes."
While the newcomers on the team will look to rebound off a tough weekend, the more experienced sailors will surely want to continue the team's climb up the NEISA rankings in hopes of postseason berths this coming weekend.
