With mild weather and bad breaks early in the fall, and heavy weather and good luck towards the end, the homeless varsity sailing team hauled out of the frost-bite season with a fairly respectable record.

Homeless because the Athletic Department set them a while back and forced them to borrow M.I.T. dinghies for practice sessions, the Crimson skippers brought in four first, a second, three thirds, a fifth and a sixth. They won some they really should have lost and lost some they could have won, but Carter Ford and crew capped the season by winning the New England Intercollegiate Sloop Championship.

Ford, Mike Horn, George Pring, and John Kimball swept through the NEISA Sloop eliminations earlier in the season without losing a race. At the finals, however, they bungled around for a whole day, then clicked on the next to take the White Trophy from B.U. in a tie-breaking match race in the early evening.

At the end of the series, Ford had tied for first with John Wales of B.U., 47-47, each winning five victories over the other. The previous day had closed with Ford, his 24-ft. Raven, and his crew in third position. Victory in the run-off came at the windward mark, where the Crimson led by two lengths and then pulled steadily away. It was a simple question of tactics.

Skippers Take Wood Trophy

In another series, seamanship, and not racing tactics, gave the Crimson skippers the silver. They brought back the Wood Trophy from Providence only because three of their four boats managed to finish the first race, while high winds took care of the rest of the competition.

The fourth victory came on the last weekend of the season, when Ford, Tom Munnell, Lehman, John Marshall, and Don Cannon bowled over Bowdoin and Boston College in the NEISA team champioships consolation regatta. It was meager consolation for the season's earlier defeats.

The great disappointments, the series they did not win but might have, came earlier in the fall.

After trailing Princeton and Yale by less than ten points in the Big Three championships, Ford and Lehman went down to the Thames at New London to try their hand in the NEISA divisional team eliminations. The first two teams would qualify for the finals.

Yale, M.I.T., and Harvard came out in a tie for first, thereby throwing the decision into the committee's lap. Each school had amassed five victories and a defeat: the Crimson had downed the Elis, who had outdistanced the Engineers, who had outsailed the Crimson.

The committee ruled a decision on points and gave honors to Yale (207 1/4), then M.I.T. (206), and Harvard (182 1/4). Hence, the victory in the consolations was not particularly gratifying.

Even more exasperating was a later 107-104 loss to the consistent Engineers in the Olberg Trophy regatta. Ford, Marshall, and Munnell battled back and forth with Tech all of a Sunday afternoon, but lost because they could not maintain the pace in the last few races.

Twice during the season the skippers fell way off their pace: into sixth place in the Denmark series and into fifth in the Sherman Hoyt regatta. But, for the most part, they ranked consistently among the top three.

Ford Stars

The varsity ace was Carter Ford, who contributed to every victory. Lehman, Munnell, Marshall, and Kimball, the other mainstays, at times shone and at times did not.

The irregularity of the practice sessions at the M.I.T. Pavilion undoubtedly hampered the Crimson skippers, while unlimited use of their own facilities might have improved the record considerably. All the schools which beat them had their own boats and facilities.