Top finishes highlight busy weekend

Rough weather resulted in tough sailing in all six of the regattas in which the women’s and co-ed sailing teams competed over the weekend.One of the regattas, the Central Series 3 hosted by Harvard, was even cancelled due to the weather. The various groups of Tufts sailors performed relatively well overall, finishing in the top half of competitors in three of the six regattas.

The most disappointing result for the team came in the Dellenbaugh Women’s Trophy. The regatta, hosted by Brown University, also had the largest pool of competitors out of the six regattas, with 18 schools vying for top finishes.Weather for the Dellenbaugh Trophy was not awful compared to some of the other regattas, although the first of the two days had to be called off at 3 p.m. Sunday resumed, however, with better conditions, despite some puffs of wind over 20 knots causing minor disturbances to a consistent -- mainly westerly 10­-18-knot -- breeze. The two schools from Rhode Island, Brown and the University of Rhode Island, naturally battled it out for first and second in the competition, with Brown beating out URI in the last race of the B division to take the grand prize. The Jumbos, meanwhile, struggled to keep pace, landing outside the top 10 in eight of the 12 races. The team did manage a win in the fifth B­ division race. The boat’s skipper was first­-year Molly Pleskus with senior crew Kate Levinson.

The co-ed sailing team had more success over the weekend, scoring several impressive finishes including a fourth-place finish out of 16 teams at the 34th Lynne Marchiando Regatta hosted by MIT. Once more weather posed a challenge as the teams prepared to sail on the Charles River; high winds -- gusts reached past 40 knots -- caused the regatta to be postponed at one point on Saturday. Tufts performed well in the round-­robin competition, posting wins against Wisconsin, Vermont, Rhode Island, MIT, Eckerd, Dartmouth, Boston University, Boston College, Bowdoin and Brown to go 10­-5 in the Regatta.The record was enough to land Tufts behind only Yale, Harvard and Stanford.Sunday saw more solid wind at 12­-20 knots westerly.

"The regatta went pretty well," sophomore Alex Tong, who crewed 12 of the races, said. "We lost to one team that we definitely should not have."

In the Barque Eagle Team Race hosted by the Coast Guard, Saturday’s weather forced the race to be called for the day at 3:45 p.m. due to wind reaching 40 knots.Very good weather followed on Sunday, allowing for the round-robin to be completed. The Jumbos managed wins in just over half of their races to earn an 8-­4 record and a fourth-place finish out of eight teams, behind Roger Williams, St. Mary’s College of Maryland, Old Dominion and Dartmouth.

The team was unable to put together as complete a performance at the BU Trophy. Once again, Saturday’s weather caused issues for the teams, with all racing on Saturday called off following the capsizing of numerous boats during the first starting sequence.

As in the other regattas, Sunday brought manageable but still challenging wind. This time, it was the puffs of wind that caused the greatest problems as the bursts of 25-knot wind caused more capsizes. Nevertheless, the race was completed as Harvard edged out the other competitors to win the regatta.

The Jumbos performed better in their B­-division races than in the A­ division. Tufts first­-year Taylor Nathanson and sophomore Isabell Sennett sailed to fifth, seventh and eighth in the three B-­division races to earn seventh overall in the division. However, 12th, ninth, and 14th finishes by sophomore Sam Gates and first­-year Lucy Robison in the A­ division meant that the team had to settle for an 11th-place finish out of the 16 competitors.

In the other race of the weekend, the Jumbos earned first out of four teams in the Herring Pond Team Invite. The tumultuous weather certainly played its part in disrupting much of the weekend's action. The regattas will have mainly served as preparation for the team as it focuses on the upcoming regatta in search of NEISA (New England Intercollegiate Sailing Association) qualification into Nationals.