Co-captain Sloan Devlin, left, was a part of the strong and experienced leadership core that gelled well with Harvard’s new sailors, helping return the Crimson squads to the national championship.

Last year, the Harvard sailing team came away with a national championship for the women’s team and a fourth-place finish for the co-eds in team racing, leaving the 2005-06 edition of the Crimson with a tough act to follow.

And despite a fairly consistent place within sailing’s top 10 all season, this year made it apparent that the team still has a lot to accomplish before reaching the heights of a season ago—but the pieces are in place to achieve the goal.

Perhaps the most crucial of those pieces is on the women’s side, where the team regrouped after losing key seniors from the 2005 title squad.

“I think we had a really strong freshman class come in, and it was exciting to see them improve,” skipper Sloan Devlin said. “Several of them are going to nationals, and they’re becoming major players, so it’s exciting.”

The new standouts included freshmen Roberta Steele and Christina Cordeiro, while some familiar faces, including junior Emily Simon and co-captain Christina Dahlman, also helped pace the women.

Although the team began ranked highly, Harvard dropped to as low as ninth near the season’s end.

The co-eds, on the other hand, spent a number of weeks at No. 1 before fluctuating among the top four and falling as low as fifth.

“The races we did lose were all learning experiences,” co-captain Clay Johnson said earlier in the year after a first-place finish in New London, Conn.

Overall, Crimson sailing notched nine first-place finishes spanning the fall and spring seasons and only four finishes outside of the top 10.

One of the biggest reasons for Harvard’s consistency was the four seniors, all of whom played significant roles in the team’s success.

“We have a senior class that has really come together, with Jess [Baker], Ruth [Schlitz], and Vince [Porter],” Devlin said. “You could spread the gamut across the co-ed and women’s teams in terms of senior leadership.”

Porter, Johnson, Dahlman, sophomores Kyle Kovacs and Elyse Dolbec, and Schlitz all earned individual All-New England honors, while Schlitz was named co-winner of the Babineau Trophy, given to the top crew in the region.

The real honor, though, would come if the team could repeat its success from nationals last year.

“We want to win the Fowle Trophy as the best collegiate team in the country,” Devlin said. “And I think we can do it.”

—Staff writer Malcom A. Glenn can be reached at mglenn@fas.harvard.edu.