The Harvard co-ed sailing team had fought through a shaky start to team racing and sometimes disappointing midseason results. It had fought to secure a spot at nationals, where it had fought from the round of 14 to the round of eight and into the final four.

Ultimately, however, the Crimson could not fight its way to the national title.

Harvard took fourth in the Walter C. Wood Trophy regatta, sharing its overall record of 10-7 with runner-up Yale and third-place USC.

After finishing second last year, Hobart/William Smith College won its first ICSA championship with a head-to-head racing record of 13-4. Dartmouth, New England champions and national title hopefuls, finished in sixth place with a 6-8 record.

The Herons, the Bulldogs, the Trojans, and Harvard advanced out of round two of Gold Fleet Sailing with the Crimson in third, ahead of USC.

One win and two losses later, the Trojans had claimed third place, dropping Harvard down to end the latter’s team-racing season.

The Crimson advanced out of the first round of sailing with a 3-3 record, after which it fell only to Hobart/William Smith and Yale in the round of eight to push on to the final four.

Despite the less-than-perfect finish—especially following a Harvard victory in the women’s championship four days ago—it was an improvement in team racing over last year. In the 2004 championships, the Crimson tied Georgetown and Hawaii for sixth with a record of 5-9.

And it was no weak finish to a season of mixed team-racing results. After opening the season with a 5-9 finish for sixth place in the Bob Bavier Team Race Invitational, Harvard sacrificed its finish in the Ferraro Trophy regatta to secure a spot in next year’s sloops championships. But the real test came at the Fowle Trophy, the New England team race championships, in which the Crimson finished third behind the Big Green and Yale.

The team has no time off, sailing again Wednesday for the biggest prize at stake this week, the ICSA dinghy championship.

—SAMUEL C. SCOTT