COEDS

The Harvard coed sailors have already carved a rather impressive niche as perhaps the best sailing team in the nation. Now all they need is for the weather to cooperate. After New England’s climate only granted them a handful of practices, the weather at Navy didn’t treat them much better.

The Crimson struggled in unusually rough sailing conditions at the Truxtun Umsted Trophy regatta hosted at the U.S. Naval Academy, finishing 10th in a 20-team regatta. The air was so harsh that the second day of competition was cancelled due to unsafe and harmful winds. It came almost as no surprise, then, that St. Mary’s, which had been practicing for about a month longer than had Harvard’s sailors, took home top honors and continued their early-season surge to No. 2. The squad has lifted its slot on the college rankings from 12th a month ago to second.

“We only sailed half a regatta,” said freshman Clay Johnson. “We didn’t have heavy crews. It just wasn’t our conditions. If we had a decent [second] day, we probably could have moved up to about fifth. We just didn’t sail that well. It happens.”

“You want a heavy crew when it’s breezy so you can hold the boat down,” he added. “It was good that we got this out of our system. We know what we have to do in heavy air. In a way, it was a great thing, we know what we have to work on.”

In the A division, senior captain Cardwell Potts skippered with junior David Darst crew to an 11th-place finish. Sophomore Vince Porter skippered the B division to eighth, with sophomore Ruth Schlitz crew for the first three races, and junior Laura Schubert for the final seven. Johnson sailed single-handed to second place in the C division, and senior Clemmie Everett, also single-handed, finished 13th in D. Overall, Harvard finished in 10th place with 334 points.