Team Battles Hard at Navy Fall Intersectional

Over the weekend of October 19^th-20^th the team traveled to the annual Navy Fall Intersectional over the past weekend at the US Naval Academy. The team was lucky to have Annapolis native Alex Ramos host our team at his house in Arnold, MD. His parents provided excellent accommodations for the team throughout the weekend and we would like to thank the Ramos Family for housing us last weekend.

Saturday morning the team arrived at the Naval Academy and was greeted by the 20 other teams from 5 of the 6 other districts in the ICSA. The Navy Fall Intersectional is a unique event in college sailing because of the standard A and B division format, this regatta has four divisions with four separate fleets of boats. A division is FJ/420, B division in also FJ/420, C division is Laser and D division is a Laser Radial. Saturday’s conditions consisted of 10-15 knot southeasterly winds, 60 degree temperatures, and extremely choppy conditions inside of the Annapolis Harbor. In A division we had Alex Ramos ’15 and Karinne Smolenyak ’14, B division consisted of Ryan Seago ’14, Meredith Wiles ’17 and Katie Reid ’15, C Division included Tom Etheridge ’16 and Hubbard Velie ’17, and Division for our team was Connor Shope ’15. The 1-2 foot chop inside the harbor became more manageable as the breeze picked up to 15 knots by the mid-afternoon. Our A division team definitely did the best on Saturday with consistent top 10 finishes throughout the day. In B division Seago and Wiles struggled in the chop but, “with the switch from the 420 to the FJ after race 10, we transitioned nicely into the new boat and it showed with our 6^th and 2^nd place finishes to end the day.” After the first day and 12 races, the team from A to D was in 11^th, 16^th, 20^th and 20^th places respectively.

Sunday featured 10-15 knot westerly winds, flat water and 60 degree temperatures on the Severn River. The race committee was relentless at starting races one after another from 930 am until 2 pm to finish off the 20 races for each division for the regatta. All of our sailors did better on Sunday in the flat water conditions which were more comparable to our home lake conditions. At the end of the regatta Michigan finished 18^th overall, with A-D division placing 9^th, 15^th, 20^th and 20^th places respectively.

-Ryan Seago '14