“It became pretty clear by the halfway point of the regatta that we had to stay ahead of [the College of] Charleston,” Doyle recalls.

Harvard decided it was more important to stay with Charleston in each race to avoid losing ground than to win individual races.

“Because we were covering them so aggressively, we didn’t win as many races near the end,” Doyle says.

Indeed, the Crimson took fourth in the sixth race, but got some help when Charleston was called for a two-point penalty.

Then, at the start of the seventh race, a helicopter taking photographs for Sailing World magazine flew overhead, and the resulting noise prompted confusion among the Harvard sailors. They were unsure if their boat had crossed the starting line early, but sailors from another school told them their number had indeed been called, so they returned to the line and restarted.

Although the Crimson had actually not been called for a false start, the mishap resulted in them finishing eighth in the race and dropping two points behind Charleston. In the eighth race, though, Harvard placed fourth, four slots ahead of Charleston, reclaiming a two-place advantage.

After a tense lunch break, the sailors returned to the water for the final two races of the competition. In the ninth race, the Crimson stuck to its strategy of staying close to Charleston and managed to beat out the Cougars for sixth. But the conservative tactics allowed Navy to storm back into contention by winning the race, tying Charleston only three places behind Harvard overall.

That set up what Doyle calls “possibly the most exciting race I’ve ever been in in my entire life. It came down to surfing one wave in the last ten seconds to pass three boats. I had more highs and lows in that race than I’d like to have again.”

Despite the threat posed by the resurgent Midshipmen, the Crimson decided to focus on staying with Charleston. In a tight pack of sloops that finished within boat lengths, Harvard was able to stay right behind the Cougars in third, while Navy was well behind in ninth place, giving the Crimson the title.

Easy Like Sunday Morning

Doyle, though, could not rest on his laurels, as he, junior All-American Michelle Yu, and senior All-Americans Margaret Gill and women’s captain Susan Bonney traveled to the College of Charleston last weekend for the coed Atlantic Coast Championships.

Gill called the event the “culmination of the double-handed fall season,” and, fittingly, the Crimson won the title, outdistancing Charleston by ten places over only six races, as many were cancelled due to lack of wind.

Doyle and Yu, competing in the A division, performed respectably and placed sixth, but it was the duo of Gill and Bonney that carried the team.