Women's College Sailing Nationals finals Day 2

by Jennifer Mitchell on 11 Jun 2013 Racing continued on Tampa Bay today wrapping up the Sperry Top-Sider/ICSA Women’s Semi-Final Championships and beginning the Sperry Top-Sider/ICSA Women’s National Championships. The teams, which represent the seven collegiate sailing districts in the nation, are competing for the Gerald C. Miller Trophy, named for the coach in the late 1960s at Boston University, who was one of the originators of the first women’s nationals. The sailors arrived to temperatures in the 80s, partly cloudy skies and a light 5-knot breeze from an easterly direction. The first race of the day was scheduled to start around nine a.m., however the easterly breeze died and the race committee went into a postponement. Unfortunately the wind did not fill in time for the Semi-Finals time limit and no races were sailed this morning. The results for the eight races sailed in each division of Semi-Finals yesterday stand. The nine teams that qualified from the Semi-Finals series, listed in order, are: Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Eckerd College, Brown University, Georgetown University, University of South Florida, Connecticut College, Roger Williams University and William Smith College. The National Championships got underway just after one p.m. The competitors sailed under sunny skies, temperatures in the mid-80s with a westerly wind around seven to ten knots building to 12 knots at times. The bottom of the racecourse had beautiful conditions and it got shiftier at the top of the course. The top was set under the hotel at the causeway causing more variable conditions. Adam Werblow, head coach of St. Mary’s College of Maryland says that the women had to be good at everything to sail well on the course today – straight line speed and sailing with shifts.

The St. Mary’s Seahawks are sitting in third place after today’s racing with Kayla McComb ’13 and Nicole De Angeli ’14 in A-division and Mimi Roller ’13 and Marissa Gollison ’16 sailing in B-division. Werblow says their goal for today was to get a few good scores under their belts, get comfortable and have fun. 'We started to hit our stride at the end of the day today and hope to continue it tomorrow,' he says. Dartmouth College also seemed to be sailing well today after finishing the day in first place. Deirdre Lambert ’15 and Carissa Crawford ’14 sailed in A-division and Kelsey Wheeler ’14 and Lizzie Guynn ’16 sailed in B-division for the team. 'The race management did a great job maneuvering the course today,' John Storck III, head coach for the Dartmouth team says. There are a number of race official boats on the water poised to make adjustments to the course as the winds shift, which makes the racing fair and even for the competitors. Dartmouth competed in the Semi-Finals yesterday and Storck says the sailing today felt a little similar to the conditions yesterday afternoon. The racing today was more competitive, however, leaving more opportunities for competitors to make mistakes. The women sailed six races today in both A and B divisions in the final series for the Sperry Top-Sider/ICSA Women’s National Championship. The aim is to complete 10 races tomorrow and the remainder on Friday. The race committee has pushed back the start time to 12 p.m. tomorrow due to the poor morning wind forecast and the number of races they were able to complete this afternoon.[Sorry, this content could not be displayed] Top Nine Teams: One. Dartmouth College Two. Boston College Three. St. Mary’s College of Maryland Four. Connecticut College Five. Yale University Six. College of Charleston Seven. Georgetown University Eight. Cornell University Nine. Brown University Visit the event website for more information and compete results from each day’s website.Watch live media coverage of the final day of the Sperry Top-Sider/ICSA Women's Semi-Final on May 24 by clicking on the Live Media link. The University of South Florida, St. Petersburg and Eckerd College will provide daily text and photo updates for each of the regattas and Chris Love Productions will provide video highlights, presented by LaserPerformance. The Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association (ICSA) is the governing authority for sailing competition at colleges and universities throughout the United States and in some parts of Canada. Visit website to learn more. The ICSA National Championships are sponsored by Sperry Top-Sider website, Annapolis Performance Sailing website and Gill North America website. Supporting sponsorship is from LaserPerformance website and US SAILING website.