SAILORS STAYING COURSE

By John Veneziano

The sky is the limit and Honolulu is the destination for the Harvard-Radcliffe sailing teams.

With a series of strong efforts to open the spring, the co-eds, ranked first in the nation, are on a mission to win Nationals this June at the University of Hawaii.

The season has included the program's first-ever Trust Umsted Regatta title, as the Crimson won an event considered among the premier fleet racing regattas of the collegiate season. There were four divisions–two double-handed and two single-handed–and 15 of the nation's top 20 programs were represented. The Crimson didn't lead until the end, when it turned a five-point deficit to Tufts into a five-point win in the regatta's final race.

Harvard received outstanding performances from Cardwell Potts ’04 (New Orleans, LA) and Susan Bonney ’02 (Westford, MA) in B Division and junior Clay Bischoff (Miami, FL) in C Division. The Potts/Bonney tandem won their division by an amazing 38 points, while Bischoff was victorious in his division by 18 points. On the final day of competition, the A Division pairing of senior Sean Doyle (St. Petersburg, FL) and junior Michelle Yu (Mountain View, CA) scored important points as did sophomore John Mulcahy in D Division. Mulcahy strung together five straight outstanding finishes to close out the regatta.

"This was an outstanding team effort, one in which every player made key contributions," said Head Coach Mike O'Connor. "We proved that we can overcome some mistakes and bad luck by continuing to play our game right up until the very end."

The squad then won the Southern New England Team Race Intersectional, going 16-0 against a field that included Stanford, Tufts, and Dartmouth. Doyle, Yu, Laura Knoll (Freedom, NH), Bischoff, Lema Kikuchi (Bethesda, MD), Bonney, Potts, and senior Gabe Dorfman all raced for the Crimson.

Harvard-Radcliffe was in the winner's circle again a week later when it captured the Boston Dinghy Club Challenge Cup. The Crimson took three of the four divisions and finished with just 104 points. Second-place Tufts was 42 points behind.

The women's team has seen its share of success, too. Radcliffe finished second at the Duplin Trophy hosted by Tufts in with a line-up entirely of sophomores. Jennie Philbrick (Nantucket, MA) and Diana Rodin (West Roxbury, MA) claimed second in A-division, while Caroline Dixon (Manchester, MA) and Emily Nielson (Burlington, VT) won B-division.