Unpredictable winds blew Harvard’s No. 8 coed and No. 12 women’s sailing teams a few degrees off course this weekend, as the Crimson’s top boats finished respectably but unexceptionally in two major intersectional regattas.

Whether spotty and gusting, as at the women’s Dellenbaugh Trophy, or simply nonexistent, as on Saturday at the coeds’ Admiral’s Cup, the atmospheric challenges curbed Harvard’s chances of delivering a compelling statement in the final run-up to national qualifiers.

In addition to weaker finishes in local regattas, the Crimson finished sixth in the Admiral’s Cup and fourth in the Dellenbaugh but downplayed the results’ reflection on the team’s capacities against top competition.

“We’re content with [the scores]. It’s nice to give the other teams a little false sense of security to think that they’re better than us,” sophomore Clay Johnson said

The Crimson will sail the next three weekends in regional qualifiers—first for the women, then for team racing, and finally for coed fleet racing. This year, there is no obvious frontrunner heading into the qualifiers. Yale, Brown, Dartmouth, Tufts, and BC could all be reasonably expected to compete for the coed championship, with the Bulldogs and Bears posing perhaps the greatest challenge for the women’s New England title.

“I think at a national level it’s anyone’s game this year. Among all the teams in the country, there actually isn’t a dominant team this year,” Schubert said.

With the weekend’s fickle winds preventing a fair assessment of the team’s preparation, its sailors are left with something to prove and a regatta to win.

“I think we have an excellent chance to win or come in number two this weekend,” junior captain Sloan Devlin said.

ADMIRAL’S CUP

Harvard didn’t open Saturday’s sailing at Kings Point with gusto, but was in close striking distance by the end of the day.

A still Sunday denied the Crimson the chance to close the gap with first-place Yale, however, and Harvard took sixth in the interrupted competition.

“It would have been nice if it’d been a real regatta and if we’d done really well,” Schubert said. “Definitely, we weren’t on fire, but we were doing fine.”

In the B-division, the duo of skipper Johnson and sophomore crew Kristen Lynch won two races and posted two second-place finishes to take second in the division.

“We were a little disappointed to be sixth overall,” Johnson said. “Although we were sixth, we were only 30 or 35 points out of it overall. The fact that we didn’t sail the second day hurt our chances.”

Junior captain Vince Porter skippered as junior Ruth Schlitz and senior Laura Schubert split time at crew in the Crimson’s A-division, finishing anywhere from first to 14th. The A-division took seventh, though their seventh was only a few points out of fourth place.