After finishing in eighth place last year at the Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association Women's Nationals, Dartmouth sailing is back in the water, starting the fall season off with strong performances.
The nationally competitive women's sailing team began the year with a preseason national ranking in the top 10. Dartmouth received 65 votes in the preseason rankings, coming in at No. 9 overall.
The sailing team began the year at the Harry Anderson Trophy event in New Haven, Conn., where the Big Green finished 14th out of 20 teams.
Dartmouth bounced back and followed that performance with top-five finishes in their last four competitions. The team earned a second-place finish at the Harman Cup Sloops last weekend, and most recently, the women's team finished fourth out of 17 teams in Dartmouth's own Mrs. Hurst Bowl on Lake Mascoma on Sept.19-20.
Stephanie Gagnon '10 said she was pleased with the team's performance.
"We placed fourth overall, but were only eight points out of first, so it was a pretty great start to the season," Gagnon said.
In the A-division, Becca Dellenbaugh '10 and Rachel Moncton '12 led the team to a solid first-place finish with a total of 37 points.
After finishing first, the duo continued to impress, finishing in the top three in seven of 10 other races in its division.
As a result of their strong showing, Dellenbaugh and Moncton were honored by the New England Intercollegiate Sailing Associations shortly after the Mrs. Hurst Bowl. They were named the NEISA women's sailors of the week, an honor that Moncton said came as a pleasant surprise.
"I was totally surprised when I found out," she said. "And now I'm really pumped for the upcoming season."
In the B-division, Gagnon and Chandler Salisbury '13 took 12th place with 91 points. Dartmouth's combined total of 128 points put the Big Green in 4th place for the competition.
Gagnon said she was pleased with her team's performance, and said that the team is finding its stride as the season progresses.
"It was Chandler's first college sailing dinghy regatta," she said. "She did a great job, and we definitely improved throughout the weekend."
Old Dominion won the regatta with 120 total points, 47 in the A-division and 73 in B-division.
In the Ivy League, Dartmouth was second only to Brown, which finished in third place overall.
Last weekend, Gagnon sailed in the Harry Anderson Coed Intersectional at Yale, and Salisbury sailed in the Sloop Regatta in Maine.
The team's performance at the Sloop Regatta qualified it for the Sloop New Englands next week at the Coast Guard Academy, where the team could qualify for Sloop Nationals.
Dartmouth's coed Sailing Team has also been in action this season.
The team competed at the Harry Anderson Coed regatta last weekend, and will be back in action this weekend, competing at home in the Northern Series Two.
At Harry Anderson, Matt Cohen '10 and Gagnon sailed in the A-division, while Samuel Williams '12 and Sarah Freihofer '10 sailed in the B-division.
Cohen said he expected some pretty high-level competition at the regatta, and that he was somewhat satisfied with the teams result.
"We finished better than last year, but we're still looking to do better," he said.
In addition, he emphasized that there is much more to look forward to in the season.
"We're looking to move up in the rankings, and we hope to practice hard and look to do better in the bigger intersectional's coming up," he said.
