The Crimson sailing team faces the new season with more hope than confidence. Still crippled by the talent vacuum created by last year's graduation, the team must rely on the untested abilities of an eager bunch of sophomores.

The season opens the weekend of April 4 and 5 with two meets--the MacMillan Cup races at Annapolis and the Geiger Trophy Regatta, a team race at M.I.T.

The MacMillian is the oldest intercollegiate race in the country, and provides the only opportunity for the team to compete in anything larger than dinghies. Harvard has finished a close second in each of the last three years, but only at the cost of dismasting one of the Navy's yawls, and cracking the keel of another.

Strangely, the Academy keeps inviting the Crimson back, and this year's squad led by Dave Stookey, ex-commodore of the Harvard Yacht Club, is determined to do better.

The Geiger marks the start of the spring dinghy season and should provide an advance indication of the Crimson's strength in the important regattas to come. The team is entered in ten dinghy meets this spring and hopes to qualify for the collegiate nationals, in which Harvard teams have finished second for the past two years.