With qualifiers around the corner, sailing focuses on consistency

This weekend, the Tufts co-ed sailing team, No. 2 in the New England Intercollegiate Sailing Association (NEISA) performance rankings, split its fleets among two interconference regattas: Truxtun Umsted and the Captain Hurst Bowl, hosted by Navy and Dartmouth, respectively. Meanwhile, the Tufts women's sailing team competed in Branford, Conn. at an interconference regatta hosted by Yale.

From a skipper's perspective, the conditions were less than ideal on Saturday, at both Dartmouth and Yale. Because the wind was essentially nonexistent, only a few races took place. Fortunately, Sunday offered winds from the south up to 17 knots, and all three regattas with Tufts representation were packed with action.

The women's team earned a 13th-place finish out of the 18 teams at the Yale Interconference Regatta.The Jumbo fleet in the A division put up 141 points, while the B division fleet posted 152 of its own. In total, Tufts scored 293 points, wedging itself between 12th-place Northeastern (273) and 14th-place Harvard (323).

The Jumbos' B division fleet was skippered by first-year Talia Toland with senior Lucy Robison as crew. The duo had its best finish in the fourth race, with a sixth-place finish. The A division boat was skippered by senior Molly Pleskus with junior Taylor Hart as crew, and they came in 13th place overall.

"At this point, we know we are fast and can beat any boat out there, but in order to consistently perform well we need [to] minimize the little mistakes across the course," Pleskus said. "The issue with these high-level fleets is that no one is making any big mistakes, so if you are not 100 percent tuned into everything that is happening for 100 percent of the time, it is really easy to find yourself in a bad spot."

As it is still early in the season, Tufts is satisfied with its current standing. Holding its own against many top teams in interconference regattas, as it has done, is a strong statement.

"As a team, and a women's team especially, we are making steady improvements, working toward controlling the controllables and preparing ourselves to successfully deal with whatever else comes at us," Pleskus said.

Maintaining a similar mindset, the Tufts co-ed team does not focus on besting individual competitors on a race-to-race basis. Instead, the sailors strive for consistency as they slowly prepare themselves for bigger qualifying races over the course of the season.

With similar reflections on the weekend, the Jumbo sailors who competed at the Captain Hurst Bowl, as well as those who competed at Truxtun, were content with their performances. Nevertheless, there was still room for improvement.

"We struggled, particularly in the two dinghy divisions," senior tri-captain Julien Guiot said. "It was a big weekend because we sent the first rank to Captain Hurst. We took the second string to the Truxton down at Navy. We were hoping for a top-15, maybe even a top-10 finish there, and we finished 14th overall. Given the crews and competition we had at both regattas, we did okay, but we could have done better."

Across all four divisions at the Truxton Umsted, Tufts recorded a total of 590 points, trailing Boston University by 11 points, but edging out the University of Pennsylvania by a mere four points.

At the Captain Hurst Bowl, Tufts placed eighth overall, out of 18 teams. The effort was led by the fifth-place C division squad, skippered by junior Chris Keller with senior crew Michelle Chisdak.The pair secured two impressive wins in the first and third races, bolstering their score and landing them a top-five finish. However, Keller recognized the impact that consistency plays in Tufts' overall sailing, and the dramatic improvement it will bring to the team over the course of the season.

"[We're] focusing on keeping high consistency in competitive fleets and not letting one or two mistakes or bad races get to our heads," Keller said. "We know we can compete with anybody out there."

The Tufts A team finished eighth in its division.Junior Cam Holley skippered with junior All-American Ian Morgan as crew.The Jumbos posted second-place and third-place finishes in two of the races, but they came up just short to Harvard, conceding seventh place in the division.

"We're satisfied. We set the goal of top four which we didn't quite hit, but the racing was incredibly close, and we were in it until the last set," Holley said. "Fourth had 189 points and we had 211, so the gap between fourth and eighth was really tight."

Consistency is the mantra for the Jumbos as they get settled into the season and try to gain more experience against interconference competitors.

"We're starting a new group of sailors at the top string, so getting experience in interconference regattas over the course of the season has been super helpful," Guiot said.

As the Jumbos look toward important qualifier tournaments, they remain optimistic. Changes are evident in many areas, but the Jumbos see mainly positive trends and improvement as they gain more and more experience in regattas like the ones this past weekend.

The Jumbos will be back in action next weekend in Rhode Island, as Brown hosts the Sherman Hoyt Interconference Regatta.

In addition to Tufts' exciting few weeks ahead, one Jumbo sailor is under the spotlight in a major way already. Junior Alp Rodopman was not only named NEISA sailor of the week during the second week of the season, but he is also currently in Japan racing in a World Cup event to help him qualify for the 2020 Olympics with the Turkish Olympic sailing team. The Jumbos eagerly wait in anticipation to see where his individual accomplishments may take him.