The Intercollegiate Sailing Association fall season is now in full swing, with interconference events sailed around the country the past two weekends. In NEISA, the first major women’s intersectional wrapped up at Connecticut College on the Thames River, offering a preview of the coming season. Tricky conditions greeted sailors, with a sea breeze favoring the Coast Guard Academy Bears filling in on Saturday, allowing them to establish an early lead by a comfortable 20 points. As the breeze shifted left, however, an impressive charge led by Christine Klingler (’20) and Catherine Mollerus (’21) sailing B-Division for Yale, allowed the Bulldogs to turn the tables and overtake the Bears as the day ended.
Klingler and Mollerus strung together only first and second place finishes in the final six races to give Yale the win. Boston College finished third, winning a tiebreaker with University of Rhode Island to round out the top three. The top six teams to finish at the regatta all reflected a strong performance by NEISA, with Connecticut College and Dartmouth finishing ahead of George Washington from MAISA.
On the Charles River, teams struggled to find breeze at the Hatch Brown hosted by MIT, with just three races in each division sailed all weekend. Harvard University, led by Nick Sertl (’18) and Christing Gosioco (’19) in A-Division won the weekend, followed by Boston College and Connecticut College.
At Kings Point, MAISA put forward a strong showing of their own, where Georgetown sailed away with a formidable 49 point lead over Tufts to win the Nevins Trophy. Georgetown’s young team established themselves with a dominant performance, and will hope to carry that momentum through the rest of the season, and into the first round of rankings later this week. Tufts Laser sailor Jack Marshall (’18) won C-Division and helped take the Jumbos to their second place finish with three first place finishes over the course of the regatta. Not far behind Tufts, Hobart and Williamsmith, riding both A- and B-Division wins finished third, ahead of Stanford, St. Mary’s and Navy.
Greiner Hobbs (‘18) and Lindsey Kloc (‘19) won A-Division by 26 points, while Hector Guzman (‘20) and Maya Weber (‘20) won B with 75 points after 15 races. Hobart and Williamsmith Head Coach, Scott Ikle, was excited by the start to the seasonand recognized that a lot can happen between mid-September and late May, when the ICSA National Championships are held. “We started with bad races and sort of found the groove,” said Ikle. After race 3B, Sophomores Guzman and Weber failed to record a score outside the top seven.
“We always sail well at KP and any open water venue,” said Ikle. “A lot of people think of Seneca Lake as a little pond, but it’s not, it’s an open water venue with waves when it blows from the South.”
The three-division event also offered an opportunity to see the full-rig laser sailors in action, ahead of the singlehand qualifiers this coming weekend.
The MCSA Sloop Championship was held at Detroit Yacht Club to determine MCSA’s representative at the CISA Sloop National Championship held at College of Charleston. Grand Valley State University won the event, finishing first in five of the eight races sailed. Elliot Lee (‘18), Joseph Kurta (‘20) and Jared Smith (‘19) sailed for Grand Valley State throughout the event.
