Tufts' sailing qualifies for Atlantic Coast Championship after successful weekend

Over the course of last weekend, the Tufts sailing team competed for the Victorian Urn Trophy, the Nickerson Trophy and the 77th Professor Schell Trophy. It was a largely successful weekend for the Jumbos, as they sealed one of the seven spots for the upcoming Atlantic Coast Championship and had two sailors qualify for National Championships in Florida.

The top flight regatta was the Schell Trophy at MIT. Junior skipper Florian Eenkema van Dijk and senior crew Emily Shanley-Roberts sailed in the A Division during both days for the Jumbos, while junior tri-captain skipper Cameron Holley and junior crew Ian Morgan sailed for most of the B Division races. Later on Sunday, junior skipper Jackson McCoy and sophomore crew Emily Calandrella subbed in for the last few races in the B Division.

Despite some occasional shifts, Saturday’s conditions were typical of the Charles River, with temperatures lingering around 70 all day. The MIT Engineers surged to the head of the pack, winning six races in the A Division and opening up a 64-point gap between them and second-place Roger Williams.

The Engineers were triumphant in both divisions with senior Ty Ingam and junior Sameena Shaffeeullah victorious in A and junior Trevor Long and sophomores Julia Cho and Marcus Abate winning in B.

Yale finished strong for third place after a rough start on Saturday which initially saw them outside of the top seven. BU, Dartmouth, Tufts and Brown rounded out the rest of the top seven seat, earning the remaining New England spots for the Atlantic Coast Championship.

First-year Jacob Whitney articulated the team was pleased with the result.

“We beat out Brown, Harvard and BC,” Whitney said. “At best we were expecting a top 10 finish, the fact that we qualified was awesome. It’s a testament to how good we are as a team and how we can compete at the highest level.”

The Tufts A team consisting of van Dijk and Shanley-Roberts registered finishes which totaled to 124 points throughout 18 races, booking top five finishes in seven of their races.

In the B Division, two teams raced for Tufts, cumulatively earning a score of 152. Holley and Morgan raced for the first 15 races, while McCoy and Calandrella subbed in for the remaining three. The B team racers also posted seven top-five performances, including a win in the fifth race and a runner-up accolade in the ninth. McCoy and Calandrella contributed two fifth-place finishes and a 13th place finish.

Overall, Tufts had a total score of 276 and placed seventh out of the 18 teams that competed, falling behind Dartmouth by just two points, but beating out Brown by eight points to claim the last remaining spot for qualification.  

Aside from the Schell Trophy, the Jumbos competed in the first-years-only Nickerson Trophy and the women’s team participated in the Victorian Urn Trophy.

Going into the Nickerson Trophy, first-year Marly Hillman noted the strength of the competition.

“It was a pretty tough event,” Hillman said. “We were competing against multiple national champions across different conferences.”

Stanford, Jacksonville, BU, Harvard and South Florida took the top five places, while Tufts edged past MIT and Roger Williams, placing ninth out of the 18 teams that contested. The Jumbos won two races and claimed the runner-up position in three, but their final result was ultimately dragged down by a disqualification and several finishes outside the top 10. Although the Jumbos' final position was in the top 10, Whitney was somewhat disappointed by the result.

“I felt like we could have done a lot better,” Whitney said. “We started off on Saturday doing really well. We were first overall in the opening races, but the other sailors figured out the wind patterns of the lake and our home advantage diminished.”

The conditions moving into the second day were also a factor, Whitney further explained.

“Saturday’s conditions were pretty sailable, with a consistent wind from the south,” Whitney said. “But on Sunday it was raining for most of the day and the wind kept shifting. [There were] really tough conditions.”

At the Victorian Urn Trophy, both the A division and B bivision teams came in 14th place, ultimately leading to them securing a 14th place final position out of the 16 teams that raced. In the A division, senior Molly Pleskus and juniors Taylor Hart and Sabrina van Mell took part in 16 races total, with their highest finish coming in the second race where they finished third. In the B division first-years Talia Toland and Leyla Senocak, senior Lucy Robison and van Mell shared time on the boat. Their highest finish of the day came in the second to last race, in which they finished fourth.

The Jumbos will be back on the water on Nov. 4 at the ICSA Singlehanded Championship in Florida, two other local in-conference races, and Nov. 11-12 for the Atlantic Coast Championship at New York Maritime.