After an up-and-down fall season, the Crimson improved its performance in the spring. The young team, which fielded only two seniors, looked toward a number of inexperienced sailors to skipper and did not repeat last year’s success at the national level.
It was a tough year for the Harvard coed sailing team, which failed to qualify for any national championship regattas in the spring season. The fleet racing teams in both women and coed boats, as well as the coed team racing results last month, kept the Crimson from competing in the final rounds.
The results were a disappointment given last year’s eighth-place finish by the women’s fleet racing team at the ICSA Women’s National Championship in Texas.
This year, Harvard failed to qualify for the event after taking 12th at the NEISA Women’s Conference Championship. This year marks the first time since 1994 that the women did not compete on the national level. The coed team, which placed fifth at nationals in 2012, also failed to qualify.
“On the whole, the season was fairly disappointing,” freshman Jacob Bradt said. “We weren’t really expecting [to not qualify], and we were really disappointed because we feel like we underperformed.”
After losing its spot in fleet racing for nationals, the Crimson shifted its focus toward getting a nationals bid in team racing.
“We showed significant improvement in terms of our team racing abilities after not qualifying for the fleet racing semifinals,” Bradt said. “We drilled down on our team racing quite a bit.”
In mid-April, the Crimson was ranked No. 15 in the nation. As of early May, Harvard’s ranking had fallen to 20th.
“We thought we underperformed on the regional level and in our qualifiers,” Bradt said. “Apart from that, we did have a few events, especially earlier in the spring, where we felt like we were improving.”
Despite how it ended, the entire year was not as sour for Harvard.
“We had some strong performances this year, including qualifying for fall championships, which was unfortunately canceled due to Hurricane Sandy,” junior co-captain Ben Lamont said.
The Crimson had 40 regattas scheduled when the season opened on Sept. 8. The fall championships were scheduled for the first two weekends in November.
The Tech Invitational and Reed Trophy regattas were postponed on the weekend of April 20 as a result of the lockdown and manhunt in the Boston area.
“Our worst races were in the fall,” Bradt said. “In the spring, we produced more mixed results.”
The greatest setback for Harvard was the age and experience of the team.
“In the beginning of last fall, we knew we were in a building year,” Bradt said. “A lot of our talent graduated last year, and we are a fairly young team.”
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