Although the weather is cooling down, competition is heating up for the Bowdoin Sailing Team. The team continued its mid-season momentum with a string of solid performances at four different regattas last weekend.
A team of four sailors competed in FJs at the Captain Hurst Bowl, where they placed 13th in a fleet of 20 teams. Dartmouth College hosted the competitive intersectional regatta on Mascoma Lake, where a prevailing northerly wind enabled a total of 10 races in each division to be sailed. Sophomores Viktor Bolmgren and Coco Sprague finished mid-fleet in 11th place in the A-division, while first years Alex Takata and Elizabeth Staudinger finished in 13th in the B-division.
Bowdoin sent two additional co-ed squads to compete on the Charles River at invitational regattas at MIT and Boston University. Tom Charpentier '10, Charlotte Ryan '12, Katherine McNeil '12, and Leah Hughes '11 took eighth out of 19 in technical dinghies at the Saturday MIT Invite, while Jane Koopman '10, Audrey Hatch '10, Billy Rohman '11, and Caitlin Beach '10 finished seventh out of 17 in FJs at the Sunday BU Invite.
The women's team traveled to Massachusetts Maritime Academy, where they competed in the co-ed Great Herring Pond Open. At the end of competition on Saturday, the team of co-captain Doria Cole '09, Laura Heyl '10, Charlotte Williams '10, and Erin Taylor '09 finished 11th out of 18 teams. Sunday racing was canceled due to high winds in the region.
The women's team, currently ranked 13th in the New England Intercollegiate Sailing Association (NEISA), recently qualified for the Urn Regatta at Harvard, which will be sailed in the beginning of November.
"The Urn will be a very competitive regatta as it is a qualifier for the women's Atlantic Coast Championships," said Cole.
The team now looks to further refine boat handling and speed in preparation for upcoming regattas in the remaining weeks of the season.
"We have worked very hard this season on boat handling, which is so critical in college sailing," said Head Coach Frank Pizzo. "All of this work is really starting to pay off. We are not a heavily recruited team but everyone has been working hard and it is showing with our weekend results."
This weekend, the team will sail at the Oberg Trophy at MIT in preparation for the Schell Trophy the following weekend. The Polar Bears will also send sailors to the Wellhan Trophy at the University of Southern Maine as well as a Central Series regatta at Boston College.