Hobart and William Smith Colleges finished first in the regatta with 153 points, followed by Tufts and Yale.

CHARLES RIVER INVITATIONAL

On Sunday, the Crimson hosted 14 other schools at the Charles River Invitational.

But even though Harvard was the host of the regatta, there was not much of a home-water advantage due to the difficult conditions and the relative inexperience of the various freshmen who competed.

“The conditions were pretty shifty,” sophomore Diana Powell said. “It was really windy sometimes, which was great, but we had [little] wind for a couple races. … The conditions slowly got worse. We were also sailing with a lot of freshmen who aren’t totally used to sailing on the Charles yet … so I’d say it’s not really much of an advantage being home.”

The squad encountered even more challenges in this regatta, facing off against very strong opposing teams, all with more experience than the young Crimson co-eds.

Freshmen Ansel Duff and Ashleigh Inglis sailed in the A-Division for Harvard, finishing the day’s five races with 63 points and a 14th-place finish. Powell and freshman skipper Kendra Norton ended the event in 13th place in the B-Division with 62 points.

“I thought that we did pretty well,” Powell said. “It was a lot of people’s first regattas, and definitely for their first regatta, they did a pretty good job.”

Vermont was the day’s champion with 31 points, surpassing Boston University and Bowdoin, which rounded out the top three.

Despite the less-than-stellar finish, the team was pleased with its growth and improvement.

“In practices we’ve really focused on getting good starts in races, and I feel like our starting tactics were really good in this regatta,” Powell said. “I feel like you get the best at sailing at the regattas, so the more experience people have the better our team’s going to be.”