Sailors cruise in Boston regattas, improve national rankings
By Jon Kling, The Dartmouth Staff
Published on Wednesday, April 5, 2006
The co-ed sailing team took second place in the prestigious Boston Dingy Cup after winning the A and D divisions.
The Dartmouth sailing team boosted its national ranking over spring break after successful showings at recent Boston regattas. The co-ed team is now ranked 14th in the nation while the Lady Green's trail-blazing performance lifted the team to eighth place in national rankings.
While the team typically divides spring break between practice at Annapolis, Md., and Charleston, S.C., the team decided to forego the sunshine of South Carolina and practiced the entire two weeks with the Naval Academy, with full bouts of racing in the weekend regattas.
At the Women's Intersectional at St. Mary's in the first weekend of competition, the women's team, consisting of Emily East '06, Kate Hacker '07, Adele Wilhelm '08, Betsy Bryant '08 and Case Hathaway-Zepeda '09 finished seventh out of 14 teams, including a sixth-place finish in A division and a seventh-place finish in B division.
Meanwhile, the co-ed team of Erik Storck '07, Killarney Loufek '07, Jimmy Attridge '07, Christina Duncan '06, Ben Sampson '08 and Kendall Reiley '09 finished 13th out of 20 teams at the Truxton Umstead Regatta at Navy. The co-ed team captured fifth place in A division but finished 15th, 11th and 12th in the B, C and D divisions, respectively.
Both teams enjoyed fairly breezy conditions with winds that ranged from 15 to 20 miles per hour out of the Northwest in the first weekend of competition.
After shaking out the cobwebs and getting back their sea-legs over the first weekend, the team went into the second weekend of competition with a score to settle. The women's team struck first by winning the Emily Wick Trophy by a decisive 10 points on Saturday at Boston College.
Hot off its recent win, the team dropped anchor at BC for the night and finished third overall on Sunday in the Sloop Shew Trophy, also held at BC. In four weeks, BC will also be hosting the Women's New England Championships and the National Qualifiers.
Wanting to get their shot at glory, the co-ed team of Storck, Loufek, Andrew Geffken '08, Sampson, Duncan, Attridge, Reiley, Todd Whitehead '06 and Laura Sheinkopf '07 came out of the gate running in one of the largest regattas of the year, the Four Division Boston Dingy Cup, co-hosted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard and Boston University.
With a total of 18 teams, 72 boats and 144 sailors on the water, Dartmouth placed second overall and took first place in the A and D divisions.
Attridge and Ferrick's performances in the Owen Trophy at Harvard earned them third place in A division, a slim three points away from the first-place finisher.
The team will compete in the Admiral Alymers Trophy, Metro Series Three and President's Intersectional races over the weekend.