The Harvard sailing team faces the Coast Guard Academy and Dartmouth at M.I.T. today and tomorrow in one of two qualifying races for the New England Team Racing Championship this weekend. Strong Coast Guard and M.I.T. teams make defending champion Harvard a decided underdog.

If the Crimson sailors have any hopes of scraping by Dartmouth today, they need good weather and fair winds. The only factor diminishing the scope of this achievement is that no Indian squad has seriously challenged any Harvard sailing team since time immemorial.

Should Harvard sailors edge Dartmouth, however, all they probably will have gained will be the opportunity to be nailed to the dock by M.I.T. and Coast Guard in the finals two weeks from now. Of course, if the present New England Champions can't even beat Dartmouth, they will look relatively silly.

Harvard Fifth

But, judging by last week's events such a possibility is not overly remote. Last Saturday, in the Greater Boston Sailing Championships, Harvard finished fifth behind Coast Guard, M.I.T., Dartmouth and Brown.

Two mitigating factors do lessen the impact of last week's results, however. Harvard had split its best team up between two regattas, and bad weather combined with tricky winds fouled the Crimson sailors up badly. Besides, last Sunday was October thirteenth.

Even if Harvard's less than stellar showing was not due solely to bad weather, bad breaks, and black magic, most seasoned observers concede that this is a building year for the Crimson sailing team and a few defeats are to be expected.