Volume CXXXIII, Number 9 November 9, 2001 f

Women sailors head to ACCs
ALLISON BINKOWSKI
CONTRIBUTOR

With two regattas left in its 2001 schedule, the sailing team is winding down after a successful season.

Most recently, the sailing team competed in the Horn Trophy Regatta at Harvard University last weekend. It was a competitive race, with ten teams in four different divisions. Eleven sailors competed for Bowdoin, and the team took ninth place overall.

Steve Lampert '04 and Wright had the team's best finish, taking third in the D division. Melanie Keene '02 skippered her first collegiate regatta, sailing for Bowdoin in B division.

Shifty winds on the Charles River provided a formidable challenge to team two weeks ago when Bowdoin competed in the NEISA (New England Intercollegiate Sailing Association) Championships, also known as the Erwin Schell Trophy. The coed team, racing at MIT, took 26th place of 28 schools.
The Nickerson Freshman Championship, which took place on October 27 and 28, was the first major regatta that Bowdoin has ever been able to host, thanks to their brand new fleet of 18 Ronstan Larks.

Nineteen teams from New England showed up to race off Bethel Point. First years Peiter Scheerlinch and Elliott Wright sailed for Bowdoin in the A division, while Ed Briganti and Becca Bartlett sailed in the B division. Overall, the first years had a solid regatta, placing 15th of 19.

The highlight of the weekend, however, was the women's performance. Racing at the Victorian Coffee Urn Regatta at Harvard, the women placed sixth of 18.
Allison Binkowski '02 and Francesca Klucevsek-Whalen '03 took ninth place in the A division, while and Laura Windecker '03 and Ellis Pepper '05 took fifth in the B division. This was the best finish Bowdoin has ever recorded at the Urn, and qualified the women to sail in the Atlantic Coast Championships (ACCs) this weekend at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

The ACCs mark the first time that Bowdoin has progressed to non-sectional event. The rankings that were released for the month of October ranked the Bowdoin women as 12th in the nation. Since all sailing is Division I, the sailors will compete against the best teams in the country in ACCs.

Coach Stizman will accompany the women to the Naval Academy this weekend, bringing great home-court advantage because he coached the Academy's J24 sailing team before coming to Bowdoin.

The women hope that the week-long training completed at the Academy during spring break will provide an advantage over other competing teams. Seventeen schools will race in the regatta, and the Bowdoin women are looking for a finish in the top ten. Good luck this weekend, sail fast!