The team consists of 26 sailors but only four are needed at a regatta, where there is an A boat and a B boat, each with a skipper and a crew. This system allowed the team to scatter 12 sailors across the region this weekend. On Saturday, one group went to Yale for a Southern Series regatta, sailing six races. Despite a solid breeze, the team did not fare well, finishing last among the 12 teams competing.
Emily Fleury '01 and Willy Rogers '01 encountered strong competition in the A fleet, defeating a team from Providence College, but losing to archrival Williams College. In the B division, Graham Dumas '04 teamed with Brenda Chen '02. Dumas and Chen had little sailing experience before this semester, but they managed to finish in sixth place in the third race, Dumas's highest finish this fall. "We've been really impressed with Graham's progress as a skipper so far," said President Nadine Krupinski '03. "He gets faster and faster each practice."
Meanwhile, another squad traveled to an Invite at Boston College. Krupinski teamed with another new crew, Bian Yu '02, finishing 11th out of 16 teams in the combined-division scoring. The B team of Jason Blynn '04 and Robin Goldman''03 finished just behind the A team, due to a foul at the start of the race. Instead of finishing fifth in the race, the team was scored "OCS," giving them 17 points.
That swing allowed UMass-Amherst to pass the Jeffs in the overall standings, and the team finished seventh out of eight schools. "Even though we could have done better, it is always fun to sail at BC," said Goldman.
On Sunday, the sailing team sent its most experienced team to battle in the shifty winds of the Charles River in the New England Series at MIT.
The B team of Drew Foster '02 and Eunjoe Ahn '04 started the day with two firsts out of 11 teams, while the A team of Peter Beardsley '01 and Adam McClay '03 hovered around third place. Through the first seven races, the team was in second place, only three points behind national powerhouse Connecticut College.
Then, disaster struck the sailors. The A team capsized their Tech Dinghy, a bathtub-esque boat that cannot be righted without assistance from a safety boat. The team could only sit and watch their boat be pumped out as the fleet passed them, dropping them to a "Did Not Finish," worth 12 points.
"That was a devastating psychological blow," said Beardsley, the former team captain. "Although our B team was not directly affected, it took a lot of their momentum away." The team ended up fourth overall.
On Saturday, the team will host their only home regatta of the season on Lake Arcadia in Belchertown, against UMass, Smith College, UConn, Wesleyan University, Trinity College, and Williams.
The team will end their season on Thanksgiving Weekend in Chicago, in the prestigious Timme Angsten Regatta, which is the Midwest Fall Championship. With a top five finish in the event the team can finish in the top 20 nationally.