The Harvard sailing team qualified for the New England Intercollegiate Sailing Association Championship Saturday when it won second place in a seven-college race at M.I.T. Piling up 67 points, the Crimson sailors trailed the victorious B.U. team by only one point.

Because of their wins Saturday, Harvard and B.U. will complete against seven other New England teams for the NEISA Championship at Brown May 11-12. Last year the Crimson sailors took second place in the race and then went on to gain another second is the National Championship. With almost the same team its 1962 successes.

Saturday's race was a tense one from the starting gun. Encumbered by gusty winds, Crimson sailors Carter Ford '63, Mike Horn '63, John Marshall '64, and Dave Gants '64 found themselves locked in a close three-way battle with B.U. and the University of Rhode Island. U.R.I. trailed the two Massachusetts teams with 64 points at the end of the race.

Invading Connecticut last Sunday, Harvard sailors raced at the Coast Guard Academy and at Yale. The Crimson placed second in the New London contest with 30 points. M.I.T was way out in front from the start, ultimately racking up 41 points. With tricky winds and an even trickier Yale fleet, the Varsity took fifth in the nine-college meet in New Haven.

This weekend Ford and Michael Lehmann '63 will skipper two Crimson crews in the annual race for the Owen Trophy, the unofficial Eastern championship, in Annapolis, Md.