Barbara Grant of Radcliffe captured third place Sunday in the Single Handed Sailing Championships of the New England Women's Intercollegiate Sailing Association NEWISA.

Mary Bozzuto of MIT won the championship and Kathy Boynton of Connecticut College finished second. Kathy Angell of Radcliffe also competed.

The NEWISA meet held in the Charles River Bastin marked the beginning of another year for the Radcliffe Sailing Team the Cliffies have won the national women's sailing four of the last five years.

The Single Handed Championships is a traditional warm up preceding the regular doubles season which begins this weekend.

The Cliffe opens its regular season Saturday against Connecticut College at the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn.

Radcliffe will face the eleven other active members of NEWISA in preparation for the National Championships in early June.

The 'Cliffe sailors race in 12-foot dinghies over rectangular courses which are normally about one mile in length.

Each team in NEWISA fields two boats, which sail in two different divisions. A regatta consists of a series of races in which each two-woman team has a chance to race in each of the boats which the home school provides.

A normal regatta consists of competing schools and therefore lasts for twelve races.

The length of the race course varies according to the weather conditions on any given day. The course is laid out so that a single race will take approximately 20 minutes.