Sailing to success

Following victories at four trophy regattas, the Dartmouth sailing team capped its most successful season since 1974 with an Ivy League championship for the varsity squad and a #1 national ranking for the women's varsity.

Dartmouth narrowly defeated Brown and six other Ivies at the Mosbacher Trophy held October 3 at Yale. Jay Lott '89 and Kate Harris '87 sailed to a close third place in "A" division, only five points behind Brown. Eric Chin '91 and Ben Forbush '90 put together a consistent string of races in "8" division, and came in seven points ahead of the Brown "8" team.

The Mosbacher, like most collegiate regattas, was sailed in two divisions, "A" and "B." Each school fields a team of four, with a two-person boat in each division. Regattas typically consist of several short races, each lasting about 20 minutes, around a triangular course. Since boats earn points in each race equal to their place, the low total wins.

Lott and Harris had two bullets, the sailor's term for a first-place finish, in their sixrace series. Chin and Forbush needed but a single bullet—and four second-place finishes—to win their division. When the divisional scores were added together, it was Dartmouth by two over Brown, the first Ivy championship for the Green since 1969. (For Dartmouth, winning the trophy was doubly sweet because it is named for Emil "Bus" Mosbacher '43, two-time defender of the America's Cup.)

Coach Bill Hurst said the Mosbacher victory showed the depth of the Dartmouth squad. "I was especially pleased because we had 20 other team members at four other regattas that weekend," Hurst said. Dartmouth's top two skippers were not even at the Mosbacher. Senior co-captains Merrill Ulmer and Julie Zahniser, along with crews Karen Bleckmann '90 and Anne-Marie Weldon '88, were named the number one women's team in the nation in the November Sailing World coaches' poll. As the fastest Dartmouth sailors, the four often skip women's regattas to race in the more competitive varsity regattas—and then use what they have learned to crush their female opposition Later. Just as this issue went to press the women placed first out of 12 teams at the Women's New England Championships at Harvard.