Out on Lake Mascoma, the Dartmouth sailing team is writing a new chapter in its storied history, one helmed by the Ivy League’s first female head coach and fueled by 11 sailors, the program’s largest freshman class since 2021.
Rebecca McElvain ’19, who won back-to-back women’s national championships as a Dartmouth sailor, returned to the Upper Valley this fall as head coach. She leads an all-female coaching staff, a distinction that represents both progress for the sport and continuity for a program built on excellence.
“I think the Dartmouth community around campus and around the team is such a special thing to be a part of,” McElvain said. “That’s a big reason why I wanted to stay at Dartmouth, stay at my alma mater.”
McElvain has inherited a program at a crossroads. The women’s team captured consecutive national titles in 2018 and 2019, the legacy that drew her to Dartmouth as a coaching recruit. Now, as head coach, she’s tasked with returning the Big Green to that championship level.
“It’s kind of like continuing and upholding that legacy of competitive excellence but also just trying to find a way back to that national championship level team,” McElvain said. “I think we have the talent and are trying to install that confidence in the team of like, ‘why not us?’”
With a total roster of 27 athletes, the influx of 11 first-years represents a significant shift in team competition.
According to vice commodore Olivia Drulard ’27, the coaches prioritize recruiting athletes who align with the program’s core values of passion, integrity and growth. Each week, the team maintains those values through weekly recognition, where sailors nominate teammates who exemplify a particular principle. This past week’s focus was on curiosity, one of several values outlined in the team handbook that every member must commit to at the start of the season.
“The coaches make a really big effort to have kids who buy into the same sort of mindset and are super hard-working,” Drulard said.
While Drulard noted the importance of “paving the way for future generations of female coaches,” she emphasized that their elite leadership is their most important characteristic.
“People have definitely talked about it more because it is so unique,” Drulard said. “But in the end, when you have really high-performing coaches, it doesn’t really matter what gender they are, we’re all here, we’re all improving, and we’re learning so much from them.”
The team’s roster includes both recruited athletes and a number of walk-on athletes who were not recruited to Dartmouth as sailors, including co-captain Sudi Zhao ’26. Zhao learned to sail at age 10 at a community sailing center in Charlestown, Mass., but didn’t race competitively until arriving at Dartmouth.
“Walking on to Dartmouth sailing was probably the best decision I made in my life,” Zhao said. “At first, it was a little daunting given that I didn’t really have much racing experience and I was surrounded by some of the top sailors in the country, but it’s all so incredibly worth it.”
Now in her fourth year, Zhao serves as co-captain and crew for Drulard on the women’s team. The partnership dynamic in collegiate crew sailing is one of the sport’s unique challenges, as both sailors have to work together to race the boat through often difficult conditions.
“There are a lot of things that are in your control as an athlete, like how you sail, the decisions you make,” McElvain explained. “And then there are some things that are out of your control, which is how your teammates are sailing, coaching decisions, weather, wind, all that stuff.”
The Big Green entered October with championship aspirations and an exciting schedule with regattas every weekend. This past weekend, Drulard and Zhao delivered in their first test, winning the Women’s Atlantic Coast Championships first round to advance to the finals. The Women’s Atlantic Coast Championships finals from Oct. 11 to Oct. 12 will serve as the first major cross-regional competition of the year, offering a preview of May’s national championship field.
“It gives you a chance to see where you’re falling against Stanford, Tulane, Charleston, some of these out-of-conference teams,” McElvain said.
For Drulard, a skipper who steers the boat at the helm, the October schedule represents a shift from developmental sailing to elite competition.
“It is my junior year, so I feel like the past two years I’ve been more on the younger development track and now I’m kind of getting more of a chance to compete at the higher level,” Drulard said. “We’re always shooting to win a national championship.”
That ambition is captured in one of the team’s season mottos: “Nationals aren’t won in May.” The message emphasizes year-round commitment to reaching peak performance when it matters most. The team also said they are enjoying their new Michels Boathouse, a 13-million-dollar facility that was built in 2024. The new facility replaced Allen Boathouse, which was constructed in the early 1950s, and provides state-of-the-art equipment for the sailors.
The team will showcase both its new facility and its ambitions during Homecoming weekend, when Dartmouth will host the Captain Hurst Trophy regatta at Lake Mascoma. For Zhao, the coming year feels “special.”
“This year, more than ever, I think I’m really excited about where the program is at,” Zhao said. “The team has such an infectious energy, especially with that strong and supportive first-year class, and we’ve really built a culture that genuinely pushes each other to grow both as sailors and as people.”
