Harvard's vaunted sailing fleets sprang a leak last weekend, as the men puffed to mediocre finishes in a pair of away meets, while the women fought a losing battle against the wind and rain to finish third in the Sloop Shrew Trophy regatta in Cambridge.

Coach Michael Horn's troubles began with the men's varsity's sixth-place showing in the Friis Trophy meet up on Mystic Lake. Host team Tufts ran away with the event, outdistancing second-place University of Washington and the rest of the 17-team field in what looked more like an OpSail maneuver than a collegiate yacht race.

"It was ridiculous to have that many teams on the Mystic Lake," Horn said yesterday. "That's an awfully small lake, and there wasn't much room to sail," he added.

While the front-line skippers were taking it on the chin up at Mystic, the rest of the varsity could manage only a slightly better showing at the Ivy League championships down at Yale. In what the team considered a secondary meet, the Crimson floundered to a fourth-place finish behind the Bulldogs, Brown and a surprising Princeton fleet.

Harvard looked set to breeze in third for the meet, when the Tigers, led by newcomer Anne Prescott, blew by the rest of the boats to edge out the Crimson.

The Radcliffe sailors also ventured into rough seas over the weekend, finishing a close third behind MIT and the University of Rhode Island in the blustery weather off the Charles.

The women actually led the fleet by nine points after the first day, thanks to the slick work of captain Laura Brown and "A" Division skipper Pam Mack. But then the winds changed and the 'Cliffe sailors found themselves in the middle of the fleet, while MIT and URI floated home with the big silver.

The men are hoping to regain their early season form next weekend at the New England Regionals, while the 'Cliffe sailors are setting sail for Tufts and URI for a pair of meets.