The Crimson co-ed squad finished ninth at the Atlantic Coast Dinghy Championships while the women’s team finished sixth at the Women’s Atlantic Coast Championship to complete the fall sailing season.

The fall season came to an end for the No. 1 Harvard co-ed sailing team and No. 3 women’s squad over the weekend, as the Crimson competed in the final two events of the year before the team’s winter break. Two championship regattas were on the docket for Harvard, and the Crimson turned in a pair of middle-of-the-pack performances to end the 2006 season.

ATLANTIC COAST DINGHY CHAMPIONSHIP

Brown played host to the Atlantic Coast Dinghy Championship on Saturday and Sunday, a regatta that saw 18 teams competing for supremacy in sailing’s small boats. Many familiar names filled the top spots as Harvard took ninth place in the event. Ivy foes Dartmouth and Brown took first and second, while Georgetown, Charleston, and Boston College rounded out the top five.

“We had conditions that are not typical,” junior Kyle Kovacs said. “We typically sail in flat water, typically an un-shifty breeze. This was pretty much the antithesis of all that.”

In A-division, skipper Kovacs and junior crew Elyse Dolbec accumulated 72 points in guiding the Crimson to a fifth-place finish. Dartmouth dominated its way to a first-place finish in that division, too, while Harvard was just five points away from fourth place. Watson and Dahlman won one race on the weekend and also came up with two second-place nods.

The B-division saw some shuffling at skipper, a fact which contributed mightily to the team’s struggles during the division’s nine races. While senior crew Kristen Lynch was in the boat the entire weekend, freshman Drew Robb skippered the first two and the last five races, while captain skipper Clay Johnson stepped in for the third and fourth races. Johnson missed the time due to illness, and while Robb filled in admirably, the captain’s presence was sorely missed.

“We were obviously a little bummed when we showed up Saturday morning and he was violently ill,” Kovacs said of Johnson. “Drew had some big shoes to fill, and it was tough, but it was a good learning experience for both Drew and I. It’s just a shame that it had to come in the season finale.”

Combined, the three earned the Crimson a 15th place finish in the division. Harvard’s 107 points beat Eckerd by five and were also five behind Rhode Island at 14th.

“We consistently did pretty well, though a lot of our results weren’t exactly what we were hoping for,” Kovacs said of the season’s end. “I feel like we didn’t quite win as many regattas as we would have hoped.”



WOMEN’S ATLANTIC COAST CHAMPIONSHIP



The weekend also saw the Crimson’s women competing at a championship of their own, the Atlantic Coast Women’s Championship at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, N.Y.

Saturday’s competition was characterized by moderate winds early on and much stronger gusts late, enough to cause a number of capsizes. On Sunday, winds were constant at the regatta, and in the end, Harvard finished in seventh place at the 17-team event.

Each division sailed a total of 17 races at the championship, as the A-division trio of sophomore skipper Megan Watson, senior crew Christina Dahlman and senior crew Cassandra Niemi finished in sixth place. The Crimson amassed 128 points in all, one better than the Navy’s seventh place effort in the division. Top-ranked St. Mary’s took A-division as well as the regatta overall in the women’s culminating outing of the season.

“It was a tough weekend,” Dahlman said. “It was definitely difficult; probably the most physically demanding regatta conditions we’ve had all season. We kind of pushed ourselves to the physical limit.”

In B-division, sophomore skipper Roberta Steele and sophomore crew Lauren Brants led a Harvard effort that was good enough for eighth place. The duo won a race and also finished in the top six on six occasions. Navy’s 63-point total was the winning output in the division.

“It was a little bit anti-climatic,” Dahlman said of the season-ending performance. “But I think it was a good season for us, and I’m really proud of the women’s team. I’m excited to see how far we can push ourselves in the spring.”



—Staff writer Malcom A. Glenn can be reached at mglenn@fas.harvard.edu.