After the first 2 home football games of the year and our
alumni regatta kept almost all of the team in Ann arbor for most of September,
the Michigan Sailing Team began its first weekend of competition by sending one
of its 2 teams of the weekend to the Prof. Hood
Trophy September 22-23.
The regatta was hosted by Tufts University on the “mystical”
Mystic Lake in Medford, Massachusetts. The lake is known for its incredibly
unpredictable winds and massive wind shifts due to the small size and large
hills surrounding the lake. To help overcome the usual lack of wind on the
lake, Tufts has a fleet of 24 Larks which are modified for light air sailing.
The Larks have oversized mainsails and in addition are much lighter than most 2
person dinghies. This allows for much
more enjoyable sailing because most crews are fully hiking in 10 knots of
breeze!
When we showed up to the lake on Saturday morning we were
greeted by the other 18 east coast teams and were ready to hit the water.
However, as the overnight northerly breeze died, classic Mystic Lake conditions
of 0-3 knots of breeze and very shifty conditions settled in. Around noon the
breeze picked up to 4-6 knots and we were off racing. In A fleet, Matt
Graham(’13) and Karinne Smolenyak (’15) started the day and in B fleet we had Ryan
Seago(’14) and Evelyn Hull(’13). It took a bit of time to get used to the highly
competitive east coast starting line and fickle wind shifts, but towards then
end of the day both of our boats were breaking into the top 10 on a consistent
basis against the other varsity teams.
After the first day we were sitting in 13th of 19 and were
ready to watch the Notre Dame football game and get some sleep at team member
Alex Mayo’s house in Needham, MA. Needless to say, (no pun intended) Alex’s
parents were very gracious hosts by providing us breakfast twice and dinner on
Saturday and even watched Denard throw as many interceptions as possible with
us.
Sunday started out with fantastic conditions of 10-15 knots
of breeze and sunny skies. In A fleet, Tom Etheridge(’16) and Alex Mayo(’15)
went out and had a superb first race, rounding the first mark in 3rd
place and finished the race in the top 10. (Not bad for Tom’s first ever race
in college!) Throughout the morning the
race committee ran a Gold Cup course (Triangle Windward-Leeward) to help spread
the fleet out and to see if the boats could get up on a plane! But, as the breeze died towards the end of the
day, we went back to a traditional W4 course at around noon and after 20 races
were completed for the weekend the regatta was over at 3 pm. After the 2 days
of racing, Michigan ended up in 14th place overall of 19, 14th
in A and 13th in B.
