Back on October 4th-6th, Ellen Dubois qualified to sail in the ICSA Singlehand Nationals regatta. It had been several years since a University of Michigan sailor had qualified for this regatta, so everyone was excited to see how it went! The regatta was held in Chicago, a nice easy trek from Michigan compared to other schools. There were 18 girls who competed in this regatta, all having to qualify from their conferences. The women sailed in Laser radials. The regatta was held in chilly conditions and most sailors did all they could to stay out of the cold Lake Michigan water. Friday began with light conditions with a lot of left over chop from the night before. The conditions were far from ideal, yet Ellen had her best finishes of the weekend in these conditions. The race committee opted to only do 4 races the first day, planning to get most of the races in on the second and third days. The second day had much better conditions. The breeze was between 8-14 all day, with considerable chop still, but much more manageable. The race committee did a whopping 8 long races. After the second day, Ellen sat in 17th. On the last day, the sailors arrived to the yacht club with the wind howling and waves crashing over the break wall. The wind was steady 20's with gusts up to 30. They sent the sailors out planning to get off several races, but only managed to do one after the majority of the fleet was capsized for most of the race. They sent them to shore for postponement but the wind never calmed and racing was cancelled for the weekend. It was a successful and rewarding experience for Ellen, finishing 17th/18th, sailing against many of the top women sailors across the country!
Ellen and one of the other MCSA representatives
